Apocalypsis
by RaMeryt
Summary: Sometimes people you know turn up to be more than you thought. More than they them selves thought to be. History has a tendecy to hide truths inside myths. And who is Methos speaking with? WIP
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I don't own the Highlander characters or concept. If I did I would be filming episodes instead of writing chapters.  
  
Warning note. I am new to the fanfiction community, so I don't know many things that I probably should. This is my first try in 'publishing' a story. Also, English is not my mother tongue and I have no beta so there might be errors I haven't spot. Feel free to comment, I really appreciate any help I can get this moment.  
  
This is sort, but it is the prologue, so expect more later on.  
  
Hope you enjoy it. I promise it will make sense in the end. I think.  
  
~*~  
  
[...]I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. [...]And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle [...]And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.  
  
500 AD  
  
What do you say to someone you barely know? How can you reach him and ask him all the burning questions? Darius sat silently in his desk. In front of him a pack of yellowish papers laid, open, exposed, read. How do you explain to a man that you know something about him he doesn't. He mustn't? How do you say to a man you care about so much that all he ever believed was a lie. A lie that was hidden so well for thousands of years. A secret that he now knew. A secret that if it was revealed...he didn't want to think what would happen then.  
  
Did he believe in God? Did he believe in a creator of humankind? That was what a God was, not? What made him then? What was he if not a God, the man who had created a race? What did it make him that he didn't remember? Uncaring? True? God in all but name? This was confusing. And he still had to decide what to do about what he had read. Darius rubbed his eyes. The man had been an enigma in more than one ways. And now he could finally understand why he would never been able to understand him.  
  
He wasn't meant to.  
  
Darius folded the papers, his hands caressing he title with the touch of a lover. Apocalypses tou Ioanne. The Revelation. It was the first time he read it as a priest. Funny how sometimes some things came to happen. John, if it was John that had written this down, probably was just a senile old man at the time. Darius recognised myths and history, very old history where other saw prophecies. He had always wondered what would happen if he fed some one parts f myths and history and asked him to compose a story with those. He now had the answer. A prophetic text, that inexplicably unfolded – or created – a plan. A plan that at some point would come to be fulfilled. And he would like to be there.  
  
But first, first he had to find the 144000 white soldiers. He knew John had blown their number out of proportions. He had part of the knowledge of the ancient. There were always 144. And they followed one man only. Protected him, kept him safe, even if he didn't know. And he would have to find them. And teach them and prepare them for the time when the first seal would brake.  
  
This was his mission. This had always been his mission, as it passed down from the ancient. 


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Don't own anything but the plot. Hopefully.

~*~

**_And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard,_**

**_ as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, _**

**_Come and see. _**

**_And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; _**

**_and_****_ a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer._**

_Revelation 6:1-6:2_

~*~

The bar was dark and moody, just the way he liked it. Just the way he felt today. Jazz music wasn't his favourite, he had to admit, but Joe's bar was one place where people knew him and left him well alone. And that was what he needed right now. This night. 

MacLeod was not here tonight, thank the Gods. He really didn't need the overgrown Scott's disgust at the moment. He felt enough alone.

Three days ago he had killed his brothers. Or at least lead them to their death. After two thousand years they were one again. All of them inside him. 

Unbeknown to MacLeod, he had initiated the double quickening; keeping at least the promise he had given all those millennia ago. If one of them died, the rest would not rest until they had his quickening back. He had forced MacLeod to give him Kronos' and Caspian's quickenings, while the Scott was so self absorbed in the pain and pleasure the going through quickening gave him. MacLeod probably would over load anyway if he kept them.

He had them all in him now. For eternity, together, as promised.

He held the glass of scotch in his hands, swirling the liquid inside. The bottle on his table was almost full. 

"Tell me about it." The soft and so familiar voice startled him. He raised his eyes to stare into obsidian ones, that drew him into the abyss of her soul, or maybe his soul. 

"It won't help." He answered; his voice no more than a whisper. He didn't ask what she was doing here, for there would be no answer. 

"You are certain of this?" her soft low voice reminded him of silk velvet. Rich and dangerously calm, you never knew what to expect from her in the next moment.

"Yes…no, I don't know." He sighed. Maybe he could speak to her about them. But she already knew. She had seen them.

"Yes, but not through your eyes." Was she readying his thoughts as well? Around them people were talking of every day problems. Around them people went on with their lives, not paying attention to one very old man despairing.

"It doesn't matter, now. There are all dead. I killed them." He said bitterly.

  
"Yes." She agreed, "and their lives will mean nothing if there is no one to remember them. Their good moments and their bad. Tell me about them, please. Tell me about Caspian."

"Caspian." He thought, memories long buried begun surfacing again. "Caspian was mad." He said at last. "Mad but brilliant. He knew all about the body and the soul of a man. He could cause the greatest pain imaginable and keep his victim alive until he decided the soul had been sufficiently clean to pass to the other realm." His eyes dilated and in the low light of the bar they looked gold, full of desire and pain and pride.

"He used to be a general, before his first death. He led his people in victory battle after battle, war after war. His people lived on the north side of the Caspian Sea. He was found there by a woman, floating in the cold waters. She believed him to be the son of the Sea spirit and named him after her." Methos was looking something only he could see, but he knew all the same that the woman would see the images that went through his minds eye.

~*~

_Green fields were people lived in peace, women and men sharing the labour. Young girls, their faces hidden under delicate scarves, were preparing the food in big cauldrons. Their mothers were out in the fields, gathering the food the Earth gave them. Some men were returning from a hunt well gone. Others were teaching their sons how to fight, or fish. Music was heard, though the source was not to be seen. In a corner, behind a hut some girls were dancing, their movements in perfect harmony, their eyes looking far into the realm of spirits. And next to the village the Sea. _

_Images sifted and the land was burning. Smoking bodies, full of blood with unseeing eyes littered the ground. There was no more music. There was no more laughter or beautiful smells. Only the stench of death, and the cries of those that had survived.  And in the midst of this chaos, a young boy, no more than twelve, standing next to the mutilated, and probably also raped body of his mother. He held a bow in his left hand, and the right held on to the dead woman. Tears fell unnoticed. _

~*~

"He swore that day that he would never let this happen again to his people." Methos told her smiling sadly. "He grew up and learned the art of bow. There was no better than him. And he helped built walls around the village and the next time the thieves came against them he slaughtered them, as they had his village five years before. And then again and again in the following years."

"He sounds like a great man." The woman said with admiration.

"He was. All of them were." Methos closed his eyes for a minute. "They called him the victor, for he never lost a battle. And he never charged against other villages. Only to protect his own people."

"How did he die?" 

"Like a true warrior. He fell in battle while trying to protect his people from a nearby army. When he woke up, there was no one left from his people other than him." Methos opened his eyes and looked at her. "I think that this was when he went mad. Or maybe the next days when he gathered all the bodies of his people and burned them, and tried to burn himself, to follow them to the next realm."

"But he woke up again." She told him.

"Yes, he woke up again." 

~*~

_The body was covered by burns, black and red, unrecognisable. The rich black mane was gone and one could see bits of the skull. Only the moving eyes and the screams of unbearable pain were the indication that this body held life still._

~*~

"What happened next?" the woman asked intrigued.

"He wandered for some years, killed all those he thought responsible for his village. And then some more." Methos frowned. "At some point he stopped caring, I suppose, whether he was revenging his people or just killing. He found pleasure in killing, and since he would always heal from any wound he just went on killing, thinking the gods had send him on Earth to do that. Soon he was eating his victims, for lack of any other source of food. He began forgetting what civilisation was. I believe when Kronos found him, he was just a savage. It took Kronos around a century to turn Caspian into a human being again."

"And so the myth of the first horseman, the victor, the raider of the white horse, was created." The woman said slowly. 

"Yes." Methos agreed. "When he found out what he was he would take his horse, he always ridded white, and charge with his bow against any one in his way. And he would experiment with his victims. Learning what would break them, what would kill them. The extremes he could reach before their life left them. He loved carving them, or eating them even, while they were alive, frozen with terror, looking at him."

"How do you feel about him?"

"He was mad." Methos shrugged. "He was disgusting, but he was always there. As were the rest of them. He never liked me much, for Kronos preferred me over him, but he saved my ass, or neck, more than once." His tone was dreaming again, of the past. "We would sit together endless nights analysing the bodies, their physiologies. Testing their boundaries, creating theories of what made them and us live. Those nights were some of the best times we had together."

"You loved him." The woman concluded. He looked at her, her long copper hair, falling almost to the floor. She was beautiful, he thought. Her red lips, he so desperately wanted to kiss, her eyes that reminded him of the black abyss. She had always been there for him.

"I loved them all." He whispered and closed his eyes. When he opened them he was alone in his table. The glass still full in his hand, the music dying out as most of the patrons were taking their leaves. He rose left a bill for the drink – Joe was not in tonight – and walked outside, not paying attention to some of the waiters that were looking at him strangely. 

TBC

So? Better? You think its ok? Like it? Let me know.


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Methos is not mine, Kronos is  not mine, the whole bloody universe is not mine, but she is. And wouldn't you want to know who she is? Well so do I.

****

**_~*~_**

****

**_And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see._**

**_And there went out another horse that was red: _**

**_and_****_ power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, _**

**_and_****_ that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword._**

Revelations 6:3-6:4

~*~

He didn't want to go to his apartment. Not really. In there he would feel trapped like a wild animal in a cage. Gods knew he had been in that cage a lot the past week. 

Methos walked next to the Seine, far away from where the Scott's barge was moored. He wanted to see the Highlander even less today. If he had to admit to himself he was angry with the Highlander. He was his friend. Gods, he had saved Mac's ass so many times in the past year. And what was the gratitude he got? Not even a thank you. Mac had shut the door in his face, the moment the image he had created about the oldest man alive fell down grumbling.

Hell! It wasn't even his fault the Highlander thought so high of him. He was born in an age where the more common tools were stone made! He had seen civilisations rise and fall, more than twice, he had been amidst some of the most gruesome wars that had existed in history. What did the Highlander think? That not once in his long life he hadn't gone crazy? Hadn't been on the bad side? 

And what did the Highlander think the bad side was? The one he thought was wrong? The one that lost the war? The crueler? War was cruel. No side was right or wrong. 

He really didn't want to dwell on these things. Not today, not tomorrow, never. Never again. Fuck the Highlander anyway. He only caused him problems.

Methos saw a bench overlooking the Seine and went to sit down. He sprawled, carefully rearranging his coat around him so that he could stay warm as much as possible, and leaned back. It was dark, in this area. Not many lights, not many buildings. He could see some of the stars in the sky. Those that were brighter anyway. He made out several constellations but his eyes remained most on the great hunter, Orion, the God of life and underworld, Osiris. And the companion star, Sirius. Isis as he preferred to remember it. 

He remembered earlier years when the sky would be full of stars, every night, no lights around to hinder them. So many stars that you couldn't find the constellations. And the way of the souls, the galaxy used to stand so grand in the middle of the night sky. In those years, with his brothers, they would sit around the fire and tell stories of the stars as they heard them from people they visited when travelling alone. 

MacLeod thought they had been together for one thousand years. It wasn't the exact truth. They were the horsemen for 2000 years. It's just that they wouldn't ride together for long periods of times at an end. They would be together for 50 or even 100 years, but then they would go away for some centuries, each leading his own life, spending his own money, and then they would come together again. Sometimes sooner some times later. The last time they had dispersed he had simply gone on, never stopping. After Nikodemos and he had rescued Iesu he had gone east, and didn't stop when the areas became unknown to him.

He had followed the stars and fled further away than the shores of Hindu, where once he had his Kingdom as Poros. Where one he had met a young brilliant Greek general that would always be remembered as the Great Alexander. He had met him, fought him and surprisingly lost the battle. But not the war. After all the young general had been so impressed by his fighting skills that he had allowed him to rule his kingdom as he deemed. And so he had for some years. 

But when he escaped Kronos – and wasn't that Iesu's fault really? – he had kept moving. He had reached China and Japan and then had joined and expedition to see what was beyond the huge quantities of water that today humans called Pacific Ocean. 

He and Kronos used to stay up in the nights to watch the stars. To see the sun rise once more. Kronos always said that one cannot see one too may sunrises. He had been right.

"But Kronos loved war. He loved the killing." There was heat next to him, and the voice was carried softly into his ear. She was back. Twice in a few hours. That wasn't common. "You must mourn them, Methos. You must remember them and understand your reasons behind this."

"My reasons?" he snorted. "I know my reasons. He wanted me to be someone I am not anymore." His eyes never wandered from the sky.

"Who did he want you to be?"

"His twin soul. Himself."

"And who was he you hate so much?"

"My brother, my master, my teacher, my lover, a kid I saved from slavery when he was only 6. He was everything to me."

"And who is he now?"

"He is dead." He snapped.

"I didn't ask what he was." Methos shifted a bit. He didn't like these questions.

"He is part of me." He said at last.

"Then tell me about him, as he was." Long gentle fingers caressed his freezing hands.

"Why? What would this help with?" he removed his hand from her grasp. He knew he was being difficult but he really didn't care.

"I would learn who he is, I would understand who he is, and therefore I would learn a bit more about you." Her fingers were caressing his pale cheek now. He closed his eyes and moaned in the reminder of what was once. 

"You know me." 

"Then maybe you'll get to know yourself." She answered smoothly, her breath caressing his lips. 

"He was born in the Island of Crete. Around 2000 BC. I found him there while he was about to be sold in a slave market."

_~*~_

_People would make way instinctively before the tall man with a god's eyes. That probably was what alerted the young boy to look towards the young man. He was unlike any he had seen in his sort life. Very tall, taller than any other in the agora, and lean, he walked with grace only seen in great cats. He wore a blue and white kilt, secured around his waist, reaching the knees, with a tearing in the side so that he could move easier. A sword was strapped in his back, and he had a dagger secured in his waist. His white cloak was billowing behind him following every step he took. Long dark hair danced in the wind, falling way beneath his lower back. _

_The boy could only feel sympathy for any mere human this man turned his stare on. It was cold, and penetrating. Cruel. The eyes changed colour, playing with the light the sun provided so generously. They were heavily lined with black coal as the boy had seen people doing coming from the land in the south. The boy gasped as the man suddenly turned and looked at him. He felt those powerful eyes along his body, taking in every detail, every muscle. Then he felt the man looking into his brown eyes and he thought his inner soul was being read. _

_The boy could understand the stares his body received. It was what he did. Or better what was done to him. Sold to the highest bitter for his body. He didn't like it, but then again he had no choice. Not after that woman who took care of him had died. But he didn't know what to make of this stranger who was looking into his eyes. No one did that. No one cared. _

_A push in the rope binding his wrists reminded him his place. He was brought forward in the small stage, to be looked at, and bought. For a moment the strange man that had to be a God, for only a god could look so divine, was put aside as he tried not to look at anyone. He had better chances for a good house if he kept staring the ground, being servile. Maybe he would be bought as a servant rather than a body slave. From the corner of his eye he could see many looking at him with lust. He barely held a surrendered sigh. He wasn't that lucky, he thought. _

_The sudden lack of sound from the shouting buyers made him look up and stare directly into the green-gold eyes. The man was coming towards him, all others stepping back to open way for him. His lips didn't move at all as he climbed up the stage, cut the rope that bound him with the other slaves and took one end in his hand. The other grasped something from behind his back. The boy's eyes, and also the Slaves master's eyes went wide open as the man took several silver and gold coins and handed them to the man. Then he pushed the rope, forcing him to move, and left the stage and the slave market, without a word, before anyone could understand what was happening. _

_The boy thought that this was a man who knew what he wanted. And took it because it pleased him to do so. Because he could. He wasn't sure as yet if he was lucky to be bought by this man or not. As they left the agora he heard whispers that worried him. They said that the man was a Priest or a Prince that served the next realms. They were saying that the man that had bought him was Death._

~*~

"So you rescued him from a hard life." The woman said, pride in her voice.

"He was pre-immortal. It would be terrible if he died a boy because some of them didn't know how to fuck without killing." Methos replied in a hard voice. He had been subjected to such treatments too many times. And he had treated others as cruelly. If he had been Death for a thousand years, he had been a slave for far longer, through the years. And he had not always been treated well. He shut his eyes trying to prevent the pain and panic that suddenly rose up from inside him. 

"What happened next?"

"Next? I took him to TahDjeser. Gave him to Arhon to raise him. Ten years after TahDjeser was attacked and destroyed." Another failure, he thought. "I was able to warn them and persuade many to leave town. We were 200. Only 144 survived. And that because they left. Kronos went with them." He smirked. "Actually I knocked him out and forced Arhon to take him away. But they got scattered and Kronos was left alone to wander. I don't know what happened to him. He never talked about it. Never with me. Those years he spent in TahDjeser, the years after, when he was turned, who taught him. I only know that at some point he came for me."

"He sounds like he loved you." The woman pointed.

"He did. In his own way."

"He did anything to please you, to have you near him, always."

"Yes. He would do anything to get what he wanted. The end justifies the means? Machiavelli wasn't the first to either think or act this way. Only when it came to Kronos, the end was me. Ironically I also proved his end." Methos smiled weakly.

Gods but he had loved the shorter man. The fire that burned into that soul had scared him. He had no soul then. He was mostly dead when Kronos had found him. It was the years he spent near Kronos that gave him the will to live again. And to let the others live as well. He had admired this man that could enchant an army to fight his war, that could persuade a whole town to do his biding, to lead them to him, Death. And for every day Methos had felt more alive, Kronos was loosing a bit of his fire, his soul. He did that to people, Methos mused. Stayed with them, suck their lives their souls out. Death always did that, and he was Death. He felt hot tears falling from his eyes. He felt so lonely, but he knew, had always known that he couldn't have people close to him. The price was so great. For both him and them.

"I will always be here for you." The woman next to him had engulfed him in a loose hug. 

"I know." He tried not to sob but failed miserably. 

"And they are all inside you. Kronos, Caspian, Silas. Your brothers, their love, acceptance and power are within you for ever." She whispered to his ear.

"I don't deserve it, not then, not now."

"Then you don't know who you are." The woman spoke harshly to him, but he didn't hear her. He could only see the betrayal on Kronos face when he was fighting with Silas. The betrayal Silas felt when he engaged him in battle. He knew they had been ready to die, he knew that now they would be safe in him, with him until the day he lost his fight, but that didn't console him. He had no idea how long he was crying. When he sobered the sun was coming out, colouring the clouds like in a dream. 

~*~

_"I'll never be bored to see one more sun rise" Kronos told him as they stood in the cliff, the sun rising slowly. "Every day it is different, every day it's like magic, granter than the day before, Brother." Beneath them, in the feet of the cliff they stood the sun bathed the bloodied field with golden light. It was a sight they would never forget. Their power was there. Their souls were there. Touching eternity with their deeds._

~*~

Methos blinked as he looked around him. For a moment he had been certain his brothers were there, next to him. Giving him their support as always. But it had been just trick of light, he was certain. He had killed them. They would never accept him anymore. He rose and turned his back to the rising sun. He was worthy of this magic no more.

Well? What do you think? 

TBC


	4. chapter 3

Disclaimer: not my own, as you should well know by now.

Some interesting vocabulary:

TahDjeser: sacred land in ancient Egyptian

Weiha: priest in Gothic. I am not certain what kind of language Gothic is, has something to do with the gospels, it might have been used some centuries after Christ. It certainly isn't as old as the Illyrians I used it for, but since I have no idea what their spoken language might…artistic licence has some good points. 

On with the story…

**__**

**__**

**_

* * *

_**

**_And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. _**

**_And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand._**

**_And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, _**

**_A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; _**

**_and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine._**

_Revelations 6:5-6:6_

* * *

"I think this is my cue to leave" Methos said as it became obvious the two immortals before him were getting a bit too enamoured for his liking.

"Bye Methos!"

"Bye Methos" one female and one male voice caught him up as he was leaving

"You guys be good." He warned them, well aware that he would be totally ignored.

"If not, we'll try to be better." The highlander said after him, but he really didn't want to think about it. This had been a very tiresome day after all. What the two immortals might do after he left wasn't his concern in any bloody way. Though he wouldn't mind spending a night with Amanda again.

"Good." Amanda purred as the feeling of the oldest immortal faded away. "Now you can tell me what the hell is going on." She stood from Duncan's lap and stared at him squarely. Her eyes only met confusion.

"What are you talking about. I thought I explained just now…"

"Not Keane. Methos!" Amanda interrupted him.

"What about him." He turned more sober at the mention of the name. The fact that he had just been talking to the guy, and the reference of a specific incident not far away from his mind.

"Oh, come on Mac!" Amanda all but shouted. "I know you, I know him. Something happened, between you two. Something bad. What is it?" she pressed on.

"Not my story to tell." Mac replied. "And I doubt he is going to tell you, either. Trust me it's not pretty. In fact it might be better if you didn't trust him all that much. You don't really know who he is." Mac said, disgust and disappointment colouring his voice.

"I don't know who he is? He's been there since I remember!" Amanda informed him. "He was Rebecca's lover. Hell, she probably was his student at a time. So I do know him. Better than you. Been seeing him for a thousand years!"

"You didn't tell me about this?" Mac said trying to decide what shocked him more. The fact that Amanda had known the older immortal and none of them had deigned to inform him, or that Rebecca had been his mistress. He knew she was old, but had she any idea of who Methos really was?

"I hadn't known it was Methos at the time. Rebecca always called him Matthias." She relented. "And you are not distracting me. What happened?"

"I am not trying to. Let's just say that some of his past caught up with him and it was very ugly." Mac protested. "And I might be having second thoughts on how good the idea of having him as a friend really is."

"You what? You are willing to send him away because of something that happened in the past?" Amanda said stunned in the highlander's declaration. Then again, it was the sort of thing MacLeod did all the time. Judged with very little information. "This is so typical," she fumed and paced the barge. "The guy has been there for you all this time, an…and what do you do? Having second thoughts because of some skeletons in his past. Wake up, MacLeod! We all have done things we are not proud of. He's saved your life, for Christ name!"

"He doesn't have some skeletons in his past, Amanda." Mac said in a tough voice she had never heard him use before. "He has ten thousand of them." She blanched. "You didn't expect that, did you? Well, neither did I." 

"When?" she muttered.

"Bronze age."

"You are mad over something that happened over two millennia ago?" Amanda was speechless "I mean…I don't know what I mean…if what you are saying…even if it is the truth…fuck Duncan what did you expect? He is a man who survived 5000 years! 5000! You can't even relate with my 1000. Times were different. People were different. Two thousand years ago the whole fucking world was filled with barbarians. You had to be one to survive."

"You know, you sound just like him." Mac spat. "And it doesn't matter. The reasons. What he did was wrong, unacceptable. He raped and pillaged and…"

"And saved your ass how many times already?"

"That's not the point!" Mac roared. 

"And then what is it?" Amanda was loosing it. "He is not ok, Mac. I don't know what is wrong with him, but it has to be because of this. He wouldn't tell me, but he was acting strangely."

"Oh, yeah? Well, I don't care." Mac leaned towards her. "Not any more. Not about him." 

* * *

"Tell me about Silas." The voice startled him out of his thoughts on the Highlander. She was back. Easily striding along side as he walked towards his apartment.

"I don't want to talk about him." He would like to ignore her, but he knew it wouldn't do any good.

"Methos?" she prompted. 

"You know, I don't care" he raised his head, green eye trying to find the stars hidden behind the light polluted sky. "I don't even want to know why you have been coming to me lately. I had a long day, that infernal Scott almost managed to get himself killed, after all the trouble I went to make sure he wouldn't, after I killed…"

"Silas." She added for him. "Silas who was a stupid brute that liked murdering innocent people-"

"No. He wasn't like that." He said angrily. "You have no idea what you are talking about." 

"Then enlighten me." She sneered as if she was certain that whatever he would say wouldn't change her mind.

"Silas was older." He was saying, clearly remembering things. "Caspian was the youngest. But Silas was like a child. Unless of course he was outside, on his Horse. He was the third. Famine. I suppose because of his size. And because he liked destroying the fields. He said that the fields belonged to the animals not the mortals. He was terribly upset when he found wild animals dead. I think he grew up in a forest." 

"He grew up alone?" she asked bewildered. It was never good for an immortal to grow up alone. He knew it only too well. Most of them ended up dead fairly soon as they had no idea of how to function in communities. 

"No, no, not alone. He was found by an old woman. She raised him until he was twelve. But she was a healer and she lived in the forest. When she died he had no reason to leave that place. He met his first death in an accident, after the woman's death. He met his first mortals a long time after. They were a hunting party, and they decided to hunt in his woods. He stumbled across them. It wasn't a nice meeting." Methos raised his hand to push some loose strands of cinnamon hair of her eyes. Gods she was so beautiful.

"So, Kronos found him?" she asked him.

"No. I did. Well, he was brought to the temple I was high priest of. They thought him a wild beast and didn't know what to do. Whether it would be sacrilege to kill him or not."

"Better let you decide. Escape the divine punishment and all." She smirked. 

"Yes. Something like this. Silas had no idea who he was and I was a good one thousand years older by the time. He collapsed the moment he felt me, shrieking like a banshee." He smiled fondly at the memory. 

* * *

_"Can you understand me?" he asked the bear-like man in front of him. The man had stopped shrieking at last, and was looking at him in fear. As if he had never met another human being. He sighed and tried any language that he had learned wandering around."_

_"Who are you?" the man asked him when he used an unused language of some northern parts. At last._

_"I am High Priest of Ekati. People here call me Weiha. What name do you go under?" it took a moment for the man to absorb all this. Weiha thought he probably hadn't spoken to another human being for quite some time. In fact it was quite surprising that the man knew any human language at all._

_"Silas. She called me Silas." He answered at last._

_"She?" Weiha asked. "Your mother?"_

_"Maybe. I don't know. It was many winters ago. She no longer walks among the living." Right. So he had been living alone Goddess knew how long._

_"Very well. Come with me. We have lot to talk about." He motioned to him, ignoring the protests that rose around him._

_"High Priest!" the leader of the expedition caught his arm. Weiha very slowly turned around and coldly stared first him then his hand. The man called Seothan swallowed and released him instantly. It was well aware among these people that Weiha was very dangerous, and not only because he could speak with the Goddess. _

_"Yes?" he raised a fine eyebrow._

_"I brought this beast as an offer to the Goddess." He said. He hadn't understand a word of what had been spoken between the two men, but the smile that the long dark beard of the priest hadn't quite hidden, as well as the sparkling of his eyes, told him that there would be not sacrifice._

_"So you did. And the Goddess thanks you." Weiha bowed slightly towards him. "This, beast, as you said my Lord, is one of her lost children." He explained, wondering if he was going to be punished by the Goddess for his lies or not. "He is a man who has lived so long among the animals that he had forgotten. It will be my task to teach him, my Lord." He smiled an enigmatic smile and walked passed him, followed by Silas, towards the inner places of the temple, common people weren't suppose to see. _

* * *

"Where did all this happen?" she asked him. 

"Illyria. Well, what was Illyria in 1800BC." Methos shrugged.

"They had temples in 1800BC?" 

"Well, no, not Temples. Those people were really close to Earth. Ekati's temple was a huge cave. My rooms were very deep inside it. No one was allowed to go further than the first chamber, if he or she wasn't a priest. And only I could make use of the deeper chambers. I spent ten years searching that cave. It proved to be lots of them communicating through tunnels. Anyway…"

* * *

_"You would do this for me, Weiha?" Silas asked him, his eyes open in gratitude. Weiha smiled._

_"You are my student." He told him. "I am supposed to tell you all I know of our people, and keep you safe. A war is brewing between the Illyrians and the Thracians. It is time I move on. And you are welcome to come with me." He told him. Silas was with him for three years now, and he had taught the bigger man several of the most common languages, even if the giant couldn't grasp the written words. He supposed it was time to get him to see TahDjeser. Their town. It was time they went to Thera. _

_"Tell me of this city, Weiha." Silas pleaded. He could only smile. He had told him the story so many times already. _

_"Long ago, before I was born, Immortals and mortals knew of each other. The communities were different as well. As time goes by you see men ruling their people. This was not always so. I remember of another time, when women were ruling. And they were fair and just and in peace with nature and the Gods of above and bellow. That was the natural order. Men would help and be equal to all, and in law, but properties and power went from mother to daughter. At those times Immortals were considered to be High Priests of the God and Goddess. And they would offer protection and their knowledge to the towns that surrounded their temples. _

_"It was peaceful for many years, but as all it was bound to change. No one speaks of it any more, even though there are a few that still remember. I was told it happened in a few decades. No one knows why, but men first, and then even women attacked immortals. Torturing them and imprisoning them forever as they had no idea how to kill them. We did what we could. We went in hiding." Weiha smiled sadly. "After that balances changed and men begun to gain more power. Until we reach today."_

_"But, Weiha." Silas asked, "Why did you go to hiding? Why didn't immortals fight back?"_

_"It is very difficult to fight against your own children." Weiha replied. _

_"But are they our flesh and blood? I thought you said we couldn't have any children!"_

_"That is true. But you, my friend, and even me, we are lesser from the older immortals. The elders can bare children. We can't."_

_"But you are so old, Weiha. Aren't you of the Elders?" _

_"No. In Thera you will meet a true Elder. He is the Guardian of that place and he is the oldest among us. He was born 3500 years ago. He can tell you more stories and myths of our kind. When we get there."_

_"Tell me about TahDjeser." Silas prompted._

_"When the riot took place the God and Goddess, out creators and guardians of this world and the next, realised that we needed a heaven. A place hidden from the mortal eyes, a gathering place, somewhere that no blood of ours could be spilt in rage or anger. Somewhere holy."_

_"TahDjeser means Sacred Land, right?"_

_"Yes. A Sacred Land for us. She and he met and joined their forces for the good of our people. They blessed the place and cursed any who would kill upon it. In a forth night land rose from the depths of the Sea, coaxed by their prayers and powers. Deep into the mountains, far away from the sea and from any place mortals could go, their magic raised a city. Our city. You cannot enter her if you don't know the passage. And the passage will only open for immortals."_

_"Because it can feel our essence?" Silas asked just as he had the first time he had told him of the story. A child indeed, all bights a bit big in size. He would bring him to TahDjeser. He would be safe there._

_"Yes. Our essence."_

_"And what happened to the creators."_

_"Alas, this story ends sadly, Silas." Weiha told him, the same time untangling his long beard. He would have to cut it, which was a same, since he bore it forty years now. It fell to his knees, just as his hair, giving him the look of the formidable High Priest that he was. But it was time to change identities again. A good lesson for his student as well. "They loved us, their children, so much, that they gave away all of their power. After the city was built they were spent to nothingness. Arhon was the only one that was with them, at the time. He is the only one that knows what happened but he swore never to reveal."_

_"They died?" Silas said._

_"I suppose." Weiha shrugged. "As I said, Arhon never said anything of what happened to them." _

* * *

"How is all that supposed to prove to me that Silas was not a bad man?" she interrupted him.

"I never said he wasn't." he shot back. "I am just saying that he was like the rest of us all. Able to be both bad and good. And he would have remained good if he hadn't joined Kronos in his quest to find his saviour." Methos sighed.

"You." The woman stated.

"Yes. Me." They were outside his apartment. "Look, I don't know what you want of me" he begun.

"What makes you think I want anything?" she shot up an eyebrow.

"Every one wants something." He replied, and he fiddled with his keys. "Whatever it is you can have it, if it is mine to give." He said soberly as he unlocked his door.

"Even your head?" he stared forward for a long time, as if he could find the answer amidst the patterns of the painted glass decorating the front door.

"Yes, even my head." He replied turning around to face her. She was gone.

****

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* * *

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**Notes.**

Ann, Anna I want to tank you for reviewing. You are my first ever reviewers and I appreciate it. Any one else that might be readying, please tell me what you think.

I have to say, though, that I am not quite sure when I will update again. Next chapter is half done, but university exams begin tomorrow, thus leaving me with very little time for writing. In fact I should be studying right now.

Yes, well…fan fiction is a bit more interesting than studying for exams.

I'll try to finish the next chapter, but no promises. Might be back in about two weeks.

Thank you.

If this is chapter is strangely set, I am sorry but FanFiction and my computer have a mind of they own today. Can't seem to agree with me 


	5. Chapter 4 reedited

_Right.__ Ahm…I came back from Tenerife and the field trip. I will be posting the next chapter within the week, or that is the program. There is a chance the internet won't co-operate and unfortunately there is nothing I can do about it. _

_This is the same 4th chapter that you probably have already read, those that you have read up until this point. I went through it again and I realised it was full of typo's and stupid mistakes. So I corrected them, maybe added a few words and sentences here and there, and presto! The result is, I hope, a better chapter 4. _

_I am sorry for the mistakes, I know I get irritated when stories are full of them, but I have to say on my defence that time was sort and it was the rather raw chapter or no chapter at all, before I left for the filed trip. That would make it about more than a month without an upload. Hope you won't mind that much. _

_I'll check the rest of the chapters again. I don't have a beta and it is difficult to spot errors when you know what you are supposed to have written. You just read that instead of what there is actually there._

_I think I'll stop blubbering now. Enjoy the story, those of you who haven't read it. And those that might want to check it again. _

_Right.___

_I stop talking now._

_Seriously.___

_Now._

* * *

__

**_And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, _**

**_Come and see._**

**_And I looked, and behold a pale horse:_**

**_ and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. _**

**_And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,_**

**_ to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth._**

**__**

* * *

**__**

****

"Matter and antimatter. Byron knew that."

Methos sat on a table in a shadowy corner. It felt ages ago when he had uttered those words. In reality it had only been two days. The bar was full, slow Jazz music entertaining the Patrons who were drinking and talking amidst the smoke.

Methos just sat there, a beer in his hand taking everything in, storing the details for later analysis. He didn't want to deal with things today.

He almost groaned when the chair across him was pulled and she sat down. He should have known. Somehow she always came to him in the worst possible moments. When he felt weak, exposed.

Which, in retrospect, was probably exactly why she was there.

"What do you want?" he asked, not bothering to be polite. She shrugged.

"I am sorry. About Byron." She really did seem to be, which surprised him a little. Last time he checked, she wasn't supposed to care.

"So am I."

"Why?" she asked after a minute of silence and he found he didn't follow her reasoning.

"Why what?"

"Why did you let him do it?" she specified.

"Why did I let Mac kill him, or why did I let Byron walk to his death?" he shot her back. She shrugged.

"Either, both."

"It wasn't my fight." He replied in the end.

"It wasn't the Highlanders fight either." She pointed. She was right of course. He had known that. It was just that Mac hadn't.

"He chose to make it his fight." And he cursed him for that. "There was nothing I could do."

More minutes passed in silence, drowned by the noise around them. Both were lost in their thoughts, both missing a pair of well trained eyes fixed upon them.

"Was he mad? Why?"

"Byron?" she nodded. "No. Not mad, brilliant. Probably depressed." He told her. "A shame and a waste. He could have become much more."

"You are brilliant, if it suits you. You didn't do what he did." He snorted in disbelief.

"You are joking right? I was Death. For a thousand years. I was mad and caused all the more problems because my brain didn't stop working when my common sense did."

"But you didn't die."

"No." he sighed. "I didn't. And that's the shame, really."

"That you are not dead?" it was her turn to look at him in disbelief. He allowed a small smile. They wouldn't communicate today.

"That Byron is Dead." He explained. "You think it is easy? Living forever? Just a challenge? It screws you inside. It turns your beliefs upside down. It makes a mess of your mind. Byron wouldn't be the first to go mad. Lost. Won't be the last either. To some it happens earlier, to others later. But it always happens. Why, you think we are sane as we are? We prey on our own tribe, our own people, for any God's name. We are not sane at all. It all ends up on how many of us are able to balance our life. And when. Before, preferably, we get killed. Madness and Sanity. It's a thin line running through them.

"Byron…he had his chance of immortality robbed away." Suddenly Methos felt very old. "I know he would have come around, in time. It only ever takes time for one of us to balance or become lost."

"You could have helped him." Anger swelled inside him. He didn't need to hear this.

"I couldn't. No one helped me, no one helped hundreds of others. It is something one has to do alone. By himself."

"Then you should have protected him." She stated ever as serious but without passing any judgment.

How was it possible, he mused, for one to tell you, you were wrong but not to judge you for it? It didn't make sense. No big news here. She never made sense.

"I should have done countless things." He retorted.

"You chose your path as you saw fit at the moment of decision. No point regretting it."

"You are the one telling me what I should have been doing!" he snapped at her, getting furious by the minute.

"You were the one thinking what you should have done." She retorted. That pretty much silenced him. He snapped his mouth shut when he realised that she was right. He had been thinking what he could have done. If only he had done something different, something more, then Byron might still be here.

"But then again maybe not." She interrupted his train of thought. "It seems to me that the Highlander was starving for a good fight and blood." She added in such a low voice that he had to strain to hear her over the music. "It seems to me that Byron was just opportune. The fact that he was your friend was even a bigger bonus."

The words hit him hard. Yes, MacLeod had gone to ends to finish Byron off. And for no particularly good reason. Mortals did die from drugs everyday in any case. And Mac hadn't even known Mike since before. But Methos had known Byron. Had loved and tutored Byron. It seemed almost as if the Highlander was craving to hurt him. To pay him back.

"I really don't want to think about Mac now." He pleaded. "I can't stop cursing the man with every thought of mine. And you never know when one of these actually are fulfilled." He said half joking, half seriously.

"Fine" she said and fell silent.

He was too much of a realist to hope it would last for more than a few minutes. Then again, he thought as she raised her black shinning eyes on his own, maybe he simply knew her very well.

"Why did you become Death?"

He froze.

For a moment his eyes glazed over to reveal someone who rarely appeared any more. Someone dangerous and powerful. Golden eyes, as cold as the precious metal, if not as welcoming, took in every single detail, this time analysing everything, planning, seeing the death, the way he would kill everyone in the bar and he relished the idea of the power he would hold. The blood he would bathe in. The fear. The life that it would be bestowed to him as the blood would flow freely.

He shut his eyes and the next moment green eyes looked at her, just as cold and calculative, but relaxed, protection walls visibly being pulled up. Walls that would not allow _him_ to come out. He stared at her as a parent would an insolent child. He knew better than to assume she was anything but a very dangerous woman, but she had been acting childish all the evening, asking her stupid questions.

"Because I could. Because it was expected."

That wasn't the answer she expected. That wasn't the answer he had meant to give her. In truth he hadn't meant to answer her at all, but the words came out before he realised he had spoken them.

She looked at him with eyes wide in surprise. Hell, he never would escape her now.

* * *

_"You are very silent." Kronos said to the man clutching his waist as they rode back to the Horsemen camp._

_ "You haven't spoken a word since…well since we got you out." There was no movement from the man to indicate that he had even heard, even though Kronos knew very well that he had._

_"What is your name?" he asked him after long minutes of silence. "We'll need to call you something, you know. And I doubt the name Silas knows you by is your true one. I mean who is named 'Priest'?" _

_The man behind him said nothing. In fact, Kronos thought, he probably would prefer to kill him here and now and escape again. Go somewhere, left alone. And he didn't blame him. He wasn't young anymore, but also not that old to know how much damage an immortal body could sustain and fix. Especially damage in very sensitive parts of the body. He wondered if the man behind him would ever heal._

_"I was looking for you, you know." He told him. "Since TahDjeser fell. I knew you would be alive. Somehow I knew you wouldn't die there. Then." He sighed. "Look, I am sorry. It took me quite some time to find myself again. And then I found Caspian and he was quite a handful. And then luck was that I came upon Silas. I remembered him from…before and he, well he knew you. Had spent time with you. And he owed you his life, as did I. _

_"We didn't know where to search for you. Arhon, Arhon disappeared and we were alone. And then others, others like us…the world changed that day. Ended as we knew it. We wondered around for a long time, and then we heard about a great King. Someone that had managed to bring the great Edin down. Someone that had ruled Eridu for long years and had made the town bloom. The stories reminded us of you._

_"We came south, and looked but we were too late." He sighed. He was worried. The man behind him, the man as he had seen him the past two days reminded him nothing of the man that had saved him of a life of slavery almost five hundred years ago. That had forced him to leave him behind to face their enemies that day TahDjeser had fallen spectacularly. Taking down every single mortal who had dared to come against them. _

_"I never thought that they would…I mean…when we heard that the mighty king was captured and forced into slavery in Edin…we came as fast as we could, but…I am sorry."_

_Behind him, unbeknown to him, the man was shedding tears from empty eye-sockets. _

_"You are a mystery." Kronos told him. "Silas and I have been talking. You seem to know so many stuff, about us, the world in general, and yet so little about you. All this knowledge…Methos! That's it." He suddenly exclaimed. "In my language mythos means knowledge. Hidden one, ancient one, but knowledge. I'll call you Methos. I think it is fitting for you. And for me to name you. After all you named me, all those centuries ago, when I was but a lad. Yes…" and for a moment it was like he had forgotten there was a man behind him. "…Methos. The man that keeps the knowledge and history of us throughout the years."_

__

* * *

__

_"_He named you?" she asked him surprised.

"He returned the favour." He shrugged. "I had a name. I just wasn't willing to share it." She raised an eyebrow for some reason not believing him.

"Had you really?" he frowned.

"Damn you." He spat. "I had many names before then and since."

"But all know you as Methos." She pointed out.

"He named me such." He sipped his beer. Funny how he nursed he same beer the past hour. Normally he would have been on his third bottle by now. But then again it was never good to be anything less than sober around her. "And I'd rather go under a name someone who respected and loved me as much as I did him, than any other name I might think of my self."

"But what is your real name? They all used their real names, what is yours." She pressed him. His eyes grew cold as he stared at her, anger barely detained.

"You know what my name is." He whispered.

* * *

_Fifty years. For fifty years he was blind. For fifty years he had uttered not a word, much to the displeasure of the three immortals that had appointed themselves his guards. He hadn't asked them to. In fact he would far more appreciate it were he left alone. Alone in his silence, in his darkness that threatened every day to swallow him whole. He mused there was only one reason he hadn't given up yet into madness. Or maybe he had, partly. But his mind was clear on one point. He wanted revenge. _

_In the first few years the darkness had been absolute. There was only pain, constant pain, and the images of his people dying, one after the other, all poisoned. For those few decades he had relived time and time again how he felt when he saw the endless armies of Edin surrounding his city. The certainty he had that they would defeat them. After all they had plenty of water and food to last them for up to a half a year under a full siege. _

_The army outside his gates had no place to take provisions from. He had ordered the fields burned down. _

_But those moments of happiness only lasted a few brief moments. Because then came the hard truth. His people were dead. The city's waters had been poisoned. He remembered the day he saw the first people dying. He remembered the total desolation he felt when he realised what had happened, when he realised they would all die, for they had all drunk from the water, and he would be left alone, once again, to continue existing. And all had seemed so meaningless at that point._

_A few days later his wife and her small son had died._

_The boy might not have been his, but he loved him as if he was, nevertheless. _

_He had cried for a whole day. And had decided that they would surrender. That he would surrender. Because maybe, just maybe there was one child, one woman, one man among the thousands he ruled that was not as yet poisoned. That still had a chance. And he would be damned if he wouldn't give it to them. Even if it meant his life. _

_He had no life left, anyway._

_His people hadn't agreed to give him to them to be killed. They knew they had no chance. They had all drunk from the poisoned spring that for so many years had been their reason for existence. They chose to fight. And that glorious morning they had taken down as many of their enemies they could. They had all fought. Men, women, young and old ones. And their enemy had stood still unbelieving what was happening before their eyes. _

_For a moment he had thought they might have a chance after all. But the enemy was many men. And they came down on then very hard. Any that survived had died the following days from the poison. And he, he was paraded in Edin. The fallen King. The last survivor of a town numbering to four thousand souls._

_ The one man that could not die._

_He had been able to hone the rest of his senses, these past fifty years. He could recognise the other three immortals and the rest of the slaves from the sounds they made, from their individual smell. From the differences in their quickening. But he kept it secret. Old habits die hard, he supposed. After all, surviving was what he did best._

_It was, thus, the sense of another immortal, coming near their camp that drew him out of his tent that afternoon. It was a hot day and the rest were gone hunting deeper in the oasis they had made their camp in. He looked around with re-created eyes. They had grown back after thirty years. But they had been dead. Unseeing. Unnerving for his protectors. They couldn't understand still how he always managed to look towards them, without seeing them. He snorted. _

_The past ten years the absolute darkness had faded away to shadow, as the nerves tried to work properly once more. For the past ten years, his quickening had tried to remember – with not much success – how seeing worked. Methos knew by now that he would – that he could not remember how with out some help. Help that the strange immortal might just provide, he mused as he grabbed his blade and his stick. _

_The fight had been long, the other immortal clearly surprised that a blind man could fight at all. During that time his protectors had returned but they didn't interfere. Kronos had taught him the rules of this absurd game of life and death and they seemed willing to stick by them, no matter what. Or maybe it was that they had never thought that he could fight. _

_He buried his sword in the belly of his opponent, hearing the gasp and feeling the warm blood spilling down his arms as the man fell on his knees and then laid dead on his back, the sand around his slowly turning red. He turned around and looked towards the direction he felt Kronos quickening and for the first time in fifty years he spoke._

_"Brother." His voice was coarse, unused, low. He felt, rather than saw, Kronos walking towards him, wariness and awe emanating from him in every step he took that brought him closer to what he had thought was a harmless man. To what, he now knew, was one of the most dangerous men he would ever meet. "Help me." Two words that said everything. _

_Methos turned towards the fallen immortal, his hands clasping the sword, waiting for Kronos to guide him, to help him strike the neck that was but a blur to him. He felt the sweated palms on his; he welcomed the press of the body behind him, the sense of the warm breath in his ear that smelled so beautifully of fear. Methos followed the movement, and soon the sword was buried in the sand, the sound of a head rolling away from the body only too familiar. And then the sudden loss of the man behind him. Silence ruled for a few seconds as the quickening assembled to strike the killers. _

_"Who are you?" _

_He heard Kronos whispering from behind him and he smiled, welcoming the power that rushed through his body, intensifying his senses, joining him with his brother that he shared the quickening with, boding them together as one for eternity. Taking the memories of seeing from the man that would never use his eyes again. As the quickening came to an end, and the power faded away, he turned around and laughed as he had never before laughed, sending a shiver down the spines to those around him that had seen. _

_Eyes, that were mo more dead and unseeing, but held madness in their sparkling depths, came to rest upon the kneeling figure of the man he had once saved as a child from a slave market. The man that the past fifty years had been his teacher to the Game of immortality and his now brother. His smile never fading he answered his question._

_"I am Death."_

__

* * *

__

"So Death was born." She whispered but he heard never the less.

"So Death was awakened." He corrected. "And with him came Hell. His ever present companion." he smiled fondly in some past memory.

"Hey, I wasn't that bad!" she said indignantly. "I mean honestly, Hell? I only talked your schemes over with you. And kept you some company. After all, you couldn't expect me to disappear completely after you had so successfully called me into being." She huffed but he arched an eyebrow.

"And might I remind you that this caused me more problems than not?" he said testily.

"It's not my problem if the others were afraid of you when we had our conversations. People never understand us, when we are together." She sighed, shaking her head regretfully.

"I fell in love with you those years, you know." He became serious once more and so did she.

"Yes I know."

"I was lost when you left."

"You didn't need me anymore, then." She shrugged, as if it explained everything. Strange think was, it did.

"And I need you now?" Methos asked her, curiously.

"Something is coming." She answered. "I don't know what. I only know it started when you took Kronos quickening within you. He was a key of some sort. His death put thinks into motion." She sighed and Methos realised for the first time just how translucent she really was. Fragile. "What ever it is, it's coming fast and it is coming for you."

"Thanks for the warning." He said sarcastically. Inside though he was worried. Her warnings were never to be taken lightly. One never messed with the Guardian.

"My pleasure." she answered in the same tone. After that there seemed nothing more to say.

Slowly the bar emptied and the music died down, until only Methos and Joe were left in the bar. The Old Man raised him self slowly and walked towards the bar, where Joe was finishing his cleaning.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Joe." He said mildly. The watcher turned and threw a scrutinizing look at him.

"Can I ask you something, Old Man?" Joe tensed his words, wanting to let him he would ask him of things that had to do with Methos, and whether he was ok with it.

"Sure. I might not answer though." Methos lowered himself in a bar stool.

"Are you ok?" Joe changed his question in the last minute, taking in the dark circle beneath Methos eyes, as well as the defeated posture the usually arrogant man bore.

"That was your question?"

"Well, no" Joe amended, "but it is now." The darkness of the bar had hidden the obvious marks of exhaustion before now.

"I see. Well, Joe, no. I am not ok and I am sure you can guess why." The old man said crisply.

"Byron." There was guilt in his voice. After all, Mac had gone after Byron to do his bidding. Joe had thought nothing further than Mike, the young musician, dead because of the 'genius' immortal. The immortal that was Methos student.

"Quite." Methos got up and continued his walk towards the door.

"Methos…" Joe's voice stooped him before he had taken two steps. "…I…I am sorry. I realise he meant a lot to you."

"Do you?" Methos all but shouted as he turned around to face the mortal that he considered one of his best friends. "Do you really? How can you understand anything that I might feel? He was my lover, Joe, never mind my student. And he was murdered. Murdered by what I once thought was my best friend. Because of a bloody fucking stupid mortal that didn't know where the fuck to draw the line!" Anger and remorse that he had kept inside him the past few days suddenly were free and Joe saw Methos under a very different light.

"Byron! Do you understand Joe? That thick-head moron fucking Highlander killed Byron! Gods, Joe, and I let him! Mac isn't half of what Byron was. Never will be. And he fucking killed him! He had no right."

Joe was frightened seeing the man shedding all of his non-threatening persona, standing up to his full height and for once looking every bit of his five thousand years in power and fire and passion.

"And I wish to Gods he is punished for it. Blood for blood." The Old Man went on with his tirade. "Realise what he meant for me, Joe? I very much doubt, indeed. You judged him and deemed him unworthy of life the moment you fucking laid eyes on him, Joe. You never gave him a chance. And what more proof that he was evil other than he was my goddamned student? He was Death's student." All of the sudden the fire went out of him, and Joe was relieved to find – if not a bit worried – the good ol' Adam Pierson in front of him.

"I…I don't know if he's worth it any more, Joe." Methos sighed and sat back down in the bar, Joe just standing there, unable to think of anything to say.

Byron had been mad, in his eyes, and dangerous, but then again, who among immortals wasn't dangerous? But Byron had killed mortals in his madness – as had so many other immortals, including MacLeod, Joe's mind screamed to him. The only difference being that he had known the mortal that had died.

"I am so tired. So fuckin' tired." The old man was saying. "I am sorry about Mike, Joe, but you had no right to judge him. Byron didn't kill the boy. He didn't force him to take drugs. He could have said no. You had warned him, Mac had warned him. He had a chance. You gave Byron no chance."

"He wanted to die. He was mad." Joe heard himself saying.

"And you had never wanted to die, Joe?" Methos raised an eyebrow. The silence he received from the watcher was the only answer he needed. "When you had, did your friends gave you the weapon or the way out? I could have helped him, Joe, but you didn't let me. It takes time for something like this and I wasn't given any, by my friends. First Mac goes and kills the only psychologist available to immortals, and then this." Methos lowered his head on the bar, resting it on his folded arms. "Tell me, Joe. What could I have done differently? I warned Byron, I reasoned with Mac…what else could I have done? Fight Mac? I'm afraid time will come soon that I will be forced to do it, Joe." The Old Man raised his head and Joe found himself captured by the cold golden stare that he was given. "When that time comes, Joe, I don't think, anymore, that he is worth giving my life for him."

Silence spread for endless minutes as one very Old Man buried himself under layers of protection, and one old watcher gained once more insight to the mystery called Methos. And he didn't like what he saw there at all. Especially since he found nothing wrong with his reasoning.

"So, what was it you really wanted to ask me?" Joe was jolted back to reality. He realised that the past five minute or so it had been only Methos that was talking, him unable to bring himself to utter a word either in his defence or that of the Highlander. A minute passed till he was able to remember just what it was he had wanted to ask the Old Man, in the first place.

"Yeah. I was wondering…you were speaking in some dead language earlier this evening." Methos was stunned for a minute and Joe realised that the old man hadn't realised he hadn't been speaking in English or even in French.

"It certainly seems so." Methos said, all the while berating himself for not paying attention to what was happening around him. He was slipping. And that was unacceptable.

"So to whom were you speaking?" Joe asked again, trying to make sense of what he had witness this evening.

Methos only shook his head and resumed for the third time his walk towards the exit. This time it wasn't Joe that stopped his advance. This time, when he stopped by the door he didn't turn to look the watcher. His voice was when he spoke was a mere whisper, holding some undefined emotion in its depths.

"A ghost, Joe. A ghost from the past." he exited, leaving a very bewildered Watcher behind him.

In a corner, hidden among the shadows, a lean figure followed him with her eyes. Her breath as she spoke words - that were in a long forgotten language – formed a white mist that went upwards unnoticed in the darkness.

"The students blood, by students blood shall it be repaid, my Lord."

* * *

TBC**__**

_Once more, sorry about the stupid mistakes.__ I hope they didn't ruined the story too much. _

_Please review. It makes a whole more happy a person. It really does._


	6. Chapter 5

**_Disclaimer: _**_I do not own the Highlander Universe, neither the Revelation. I am simply borrowing both in a little burst of imaginative creativity on my part._

_The next chapter as promised.__ Goes back in time a bit. I should probably have mentioned that I won't be writing in a straight time line, not if I try to follow the chapters of the revelation. _

_Note: the revelation from here on becomes quite strange and ambiguous. I won't be able to include everything in; in fact I have completely ignored the first 5 chapters. The reason why is that from my point of view, for this story, the Revelation is like stories and myths that were once gathered together and that in retrospect they can be related to events that happened eons before John existed. After all, most myths have their base in history long forgotten. _

_I must stress that it is not my intention to offend anyone's beliefs. I have my personal war with religion of any kind – and especially Christianity – but as said this is my personal war. Here I simply enjoy my favourite past time. Explaining religious prophetic texts with events of history older or current the time said texts were written. I just make up most of it in this fable. _

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**__**

**_And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, _**

**_and_****_ for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, _**

**_How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?_**

**_And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season,_**

**_ until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled._**

_Revelations 6:9-6:11_

* * *

**March 1990**

The bookstore was silent, as usual. Methos sighed. It was sad but it seemed that less and less people of the modern age were actually interested in books. Old books, at that. Then again, he probably should be relieved at that. He had all the time of the worlds to do his research. That is, complete the chronicles of immortals that were dead and he had known them, and manipulate the truth in other, as not to be apparent that he had been there.

And that was a lot of work, he had to admit. 5000 years of life sure had him meet lots of others, immortals or not, and create friends and foes.

He sighed again as he decided that he could drop all pretences of paying attention to what was happening in the store – namely nothing – and picked up an old chronicle of Rebecca. Riv.Ka, as he had first known her, was it 4000 years already? He smiled fondly at the memory of the young girl lying in his arms all too often trough out the eons. She probably was one of the few immortal women, he honestly did love. Petty she was with that mortal man, at the moment. What was his name anyway?

"I'll be damned! I can't remember!" he mumbled in the silence of the empty store. He shrugged. It didn't really matter, anyway. He would eventually. As he always did.

Half an hour passed when a very excited – unusually so as well – Don Salzer burst into the store yelling for him. Methos was surprised. He dropped the chronicle on his desk, as he rose to meet his friend and mentor. The amusing task of correcting this particularly book would wait until later. However had those stupid watchers thought that Riv.Ka had been Nefertiti?

"Don. Don what's wrong, what happened?" he asked as he moved closer to the excited Watcher.

"I got it, you won't believe it Adam, it exists! I found it!" the old watcher hugged him, leaving him stunned for a moment. He got what?

"Don, calm down, Don, I don't understand a word of what you are saying." He held the other man from the shoulders, in an attempt to have him stand still of a more than a few seconds.

"Don't you understand, Adam? It is here! The book. Everything! Darius had it. It's…it's like the wholly Grail!" the watcher went on bubbling. Methos on the other hand suddenly became very frightened.

"Don." His voice had lost all traces of his 'Adam Pierson' persona, calming Don efficiently if only because of the surprise that the young researcher could carry so much authority over anything. "What exactly is that book?"

"The code!" Don said, his awe before this great discovery apparent in his voice. "The research of Darius, concerning the immortal race!"

Methos just stood there, his eyes closed, swearing in every single language he knew – and those were many – cursing Darius in the deepest circle of Hell.

* * *

**_1632_**

_He hated cold. And he hated raining. And even more himself standing in this goddamn freezing storm. Darius would certainly pay for this. He wondered what was so important that Darius had send for him. It wasn't that easy, in any case. He had been in Italy, studying texts that the priests would steal and bring to their libraries in their monasteries. He had found some excellent books on Medicine written in Arabic. And now he had to abandon them for Gods know how long, so that he would go to Darius. The Immortal priest was really bold to ask this of him._

_He knocked the door to the church that was Darius, annoyed that he could feel the others man buzz, but that the priest clearly took his time to open up. In the mean while he was freezing._

_"Welcome Met…"_

_"Matthias.__ The name is Matthias, Brother Darius." He said not very politely, as he pushed the Priest to enter the sanctuary of the church._

_"Of course.__ Forgive me, but we are alone here. Every one else is gone." Darius smiled calmly, not at all bothered by his manners. _

_"What ever." Methos shrugged. "Do you have anyplace I can dry, or will you let me catch a cold." _

_"You know you can't get sick" Darius said as he led him to his cell. "But, as chances are, I do have an extra clean robe for you." _

_"Right.__ I did want to get warm, you know." Methos said as he took off his wet clothes and boots. Darius handed him the robe and he put it on. It was made for someone shorter than him and wider. "Oh, I must look like a clown." He whined._

_"No one will see you here, other than me and God."_

_"Darius, you don't believe in God."_

_"I do, my friend. I do. Just maybe not the one I serve currently." He smiled playfully._

_"Now, I really don't know what's gotten to you today, but I really don't feel up to it. Do you have some food? And something to drink perhaps? And maybe then you can tell me what was so important that I had to abandon my library to come here."_

_"Well. I think I can provide all of these things." Darius said as he led him to the kitchen and prepared something for both of them to eat. Some bread and cheese, and some salted fish. Ale as well. Methos smiled seeing the beverage. "I found a book" Darius talked as the other immortal ate. "A book that talks about a lost city. A special one, that was destroyed thousands of years ago."_

_"It wasn't so special then." Methos commented between bites._

_"Yes it was. You see it was _our_ city." Darius said annoyed._

_"We never had cities." _

_"Methos!__ You know I've been looking for an answer to all the questions that plague us."_

_"I know."_

_"Well, the writing clearly speaks of this city as being the city of the Gods…"_

_"Are you sure you didn't just found Plato's 'Peri Physeos'?" _

_"I am not talking about Atlantis." Darius snapped. "I am talking about a city that must have been somewhere in the Mediterranean. A city built by one of us. Using his magic. The gathering place, the holy place."_

_"The Gathering is far away still." Methos said with a sad smile._

_"Methos!__ Are you trying to irritate me? You know as well as I do that there is no Gathering and no game." Methos eyes left the food and stared deeply into Darius' ones._

_"I knew you were a fool, Darius, but you cannot be blind as well. Did your exile in this church meddle with your brain, my friend? Last time I checked, and that would be only four hours ago, the Game still reined supreme."_

_"Four hours…" Darius' eyes widened. "You were challenged? Who was it? You ok?" Methos smiled in the concerned voice of his friend._

_"I am here, am I not?" he smirked._

_"And the other?"__ Darius asked. He was happy that Methos was safe, but he couldn't stop wondering if perhaps he had known the other immortal. He had lost so many of his friends through out the years._

_"A stupid child."__ Methos growled. "A pompous idiot that knows swords better than it is safe."_

_"Am I to understand that he almost beat you?" Darius couldn't help but be intrigued. _

_Someone that was as good as Methos in fighting? That was rare indeed. He had been one, hundreds of years before, when he was still in the game, but…was there a new immortal powerful enough to do what? Could he be one of the 144? He had found many, but some had died since then, and others he had never been able to locate. Maybe…_

_"Don't be an idiot." Methos snapped. "Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod has a long way yet to go if he wants to beat me. Still…" for a moment he seemed lost in thought. "The boy is good. Let's hope he'll turn out ok."_

_"So, he didn't win. But neither did you?" Darius' interest was even more peaked. Methos rarely ever spoke of immortals, young or old, and if he did so for this MacLeod then it was either because he had been impressed or extremely irritated. He looked at the Old Man more carefully. Or maybe both, he smirked._

_"I did, at least it was my sword in his neck at the end of the fight." He told him._

_"And…"_

_"…and that's it. I told him that he shouldn't judge a book from his cover, or something on those lines, he cursed me profoundly, stunned that I had cheated – what?" he looked indignantly at the stare Darius was throwing him. "I wasn't about to prolong a fight that I could end in mere minutes! You never know when something will go wrong and then, bye, bye Methos."_

_"I am sorry, my friend. You are of course right, it's just that I…"_

_"Oh, by the Goddess, Darius!__ I didn't kill the boy! I simply stunned him and went on my road!" Methos said exasperated. _

_"Forgive me, Methos" Darius said looking admonished. "It's just that I wish you didn't kill anyone in general."_

_"Only those that come after me, Darius."__ Methos sighed. "And only when I run out of choices."_

_"Of course."__ Darius said and silence fell over them for long moments. Then Darius raised his head and looked at him as Methos was finished his ale. "So, about the Game…"_

_"Hell, Darius!" Methos groaned loudly. He had hoped that the priest would have forgotten about it, after all that was why he had mentioned that idiot, but no! Darius was too headstrong. Even for his own good. "Forget about the Game. It doesn't matter what once was. Only now. And for now the Game is still big out there." He pointed generally outside with his hand. _

_"So I am right." Darius said slowly, in almost a whisper._

_"What if you are? Darius, listen to me. I lived in an era before the game. I do know of your lost City. The name was TahDjeser. I probably grew up there, seeing as my earliest memories are from that place. And yes there was no Game. But there are very few among us that remember that place. Very few, and I have lost touch with them. You think all these years I didn't try to correct the ways of the young ones? You think that I have not tried? Why do you suppose I hardly ever have any students? What would I teach them? A stupid murderous Game? I don't even know who started it, but I know it cannot stop. It never will. Immortals will die, and then reborn as foundlings. TahDjeser is the Gathering place. There is the memory of it in each of us, but no one remembers." Methos shouted._

_"It doesn't matter whether you are right or wrong. The quickening made us addicted. To the power it carries. No one is willing to stop the fight. The promise of power, of never ending power is too alluring." He sat back down looking defeated. Darius could not help but notice that the man before him was one that had experienced so much, he himself could never hope to even see or hear about. And maybe, if truth was to be told, he didn't want to._

_"You carry knowledge my friend. Hidden one." Darius said, his eyebrows set into a frown, Methos recognised as a thinking one._

_"I am 5000 years old, Darius. What did you expect?" He smiled and Darius chuckled._

_ "Methos, have you ever heard about the Key?" Darius became serious again. _

_"The Key?"___

_"The Key that leads to the Chamber of Knowledge.__ That holds the book of immortality. The book that explains everything." Darius eyes shone for a moment as if in madness in the promise the key and the book held. And Methos saw it. _

_"No. Never heard of it before. And maybe it would be better if _you_ stopped your pursuit of this road. It is one with madness waiting in every corner, and no clear end. I know." He put his hand on the priest's shoulder in a fatherly way "I've been down that road. There is nothing there but despair. Forget all of these, Darius. Most were written by Watchers, eager to prove that there are more to us than there really is. And other are just fables, their origin lost in the midst of time. Why, you wouldn't believe what stories I've read in your Holy Bible, that were children bed time stories of the old times." He chuckled and the tense atmosphere dissolved. _

_"You are a great man, my friend. I will do as you propose." Darius smiled kindly, as Methos yawned._

_"I am just a guy. You are something else, on the other hand. Let us go to sleep, tonight Darius. And tomorrow, I have lots of secrets to reveal to you my friend. And they are far more practical than the knowledge of our origins. They are of healing, and this is something any priest should know."_

_"You are right, Methos. And it is late." Darius said and led him to his cell to allow him the privacy he knew the older immortal wanted. From outside the room, in the hall way, Darius smirked. "Just a guy! Your time is not here yet, my friend. But soon, soon Kronos will find you and then my Khery Seshtah, you will remember." _

_The man walking down the stairs to Darius cell, was someone far older than the General that became a Priest over night. The man who wore the priest's robes was called Arhon._

* * *

"Adam, are you ok?" Don's voice shook him from his momentary reminiscence. With a vow that he would go and see Darius if only to disclose to him some of his thoughts on priests who lie, he turned towards the Watcher, at once assuming his Adam Pierson persona.

"Yes, yes. It's just…I don't know, big news, I suppose." He said idly. Don wasn't fooled one bit. There was something fishy here. Adam had always seemed to know more than he should, and this wasn't awe in his eyes about the book, but anger. Anger and fear. "How did you get it? I am sure that Darius would not allow you to just barge in and remove it."

"No. No, of course he wouldn't." Don smiled a bit. "We were lucky, that's all. He left it on a chair when a woman suddenly came in crying like a banshee and demanding help from him." Don saw the eyebrows of the young man shoot upwards and chuckled, guessing what he was thinking. "No, Adam. The woman wasn't one of us. It was just luck. In any case his watcher knew that the book was important to him for some reason and given the chance, he took it."

"I wasn't aware that theft was among a field watcher's duties." Adam said wryly.

"Adam! This is an important book!" Don told him clearly exasperated with him.

"That does not belong to you." Methos retorted. "In any case. Have you read it?"

"Aha!" Don cried enthusiastically. "I knew you would see it my way in the end."

"Your way?" Adam inquired innocently as he moved to lock the front door. It was apparent that the shop would not be open to any costumers for the rest of the day.

"My way." Don agreed. "Since we have it, we read it." Adam smiled. Yes that was Don.

"Oh, good. So I take it that you haven't read it as yet."

"Well, no. I think it's Gothic. I can't read it, but…" Don smiled a Cheshire smile, while Adam sighed surrendered.

"…I can." Inwardly he was smiling. One less worry off his mind. The book was going straight back to Darius. Or the fire, depending on what was written down in it.

TBC

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_Good? Not good? Please review._

_Note: I can't find anywhere in my notes – probably because I left most of them in UK – what __Khery__ Seshtah __means. I think it must be keeper of secrets. I certainly use it in this context here. It is ancient Egyptian by the way_

_I know this chapter has quite a huge amount of author notes, but I couldn't help it. If you are bored of such things then go somewhere else, the story finishes here, for now. For the rest of you that might be interesting, I just wanted to thank you of your kind reviews, those that have reviewed, that is. You people make me smile so hard, that I have to fight to present a more 'normal' face to my family – who I have to admit do throw some pretty funny glances towards me. _

_Any way, thank you Lady Trista, SGT, FantasyChick, SB and Wajag for your kind words. You really do drive me to write more of this. You are great. _

_Village-Mystic, thanks for the review. I have to admit I hadn't thought of it like this, though it might seem that way. I must say you are quite off in your theory of the woman. Methos does have a huge past, but I think he probably has dealt with it before now. He wouldn't have survived otherwise. I believe Methos must be able to create multiple personalities as a way to protect himself, but she has nothing to do with it. On the down to earth approach, I would say she is just a tool I need for Methos to have his flashbacks integrated in the story. And she helps to develop his depression. I am happy you liked the air of melancholy. I was afraid I might have over done it. Please do tell me if this is the case and I will try to shake him out of it. _

_As for the woman, she might be a tool, but she is also Hell and if I manage to make any sense of the following Revelation chapters you might just get a better idea of what she is or what she is talking about. At this point it is anyone's guess. Mine as well._

_Again, thanks all of you that spared some time to review my story. Comments are happily accepted, as well as recommendations. If they do fit in I would love to include them. After all, you might have some better ideas than mine._


	7. chapter 6

_Disclaimer: I took their heads hoping they would be mine, but alas it didn't work. _

_Sorry for the delay. I had posted this chapter some days ago but it didn't appear in Fanfiction. I noticed it only today. Thus, there you go._

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**_And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;_**

**_And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind._**

**_And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places._**

**_And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;_**

**_And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:_**

**_For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?_**

_Revelation 6:12-6:17_

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**1045 AD**

She lay there, awoke, looking at him sleeping. She loved looking him while at his most relaxed, most real. With no lies or walls to hide behind, her Matthias was beautiful, she thought. His eyebrows creased for a moment and she sighed. So much for wishing for a quiet night. Matthias was dreaming. Which meant that he would wake up soon enough from whatever nightmare was plaguing him again. She smiled sadly. He still hadn't escaped his past.

Silently she raised her self off her bed and walked to the window. She enjoyed the cool night air that rushed through it. The night was as calm as the man in the bed couldn't be. He already had started struggling against Gods knows what. 'No, no Gods.' She thought to her self. 'One God, these days, walks the grounds.' She was certain that neither the stars nor the brilliant moon would care how many gods humans chose to believe in. After all they had used to be among them.

The sudden gasp for air alerted her that he was not sleeping any more. She bent her head and sighed again. He was beginning to control himself. Some centuries ago would have woken up screaming like a banshee. Now it was a silent gasp, she would have probably missed it if she hadn't been up already. And she was certain that this was not an indication of his nightmares getting less fearsome in time.

"I am sorry." The soft voice spoken in a dead and long forgotten language send shivers down her spine. Or maybe it was his soft breath against her ear, or his hands gently caressing her, in a way that most people would be scandalised in this era.

"I was already up." He didn't need anything else to feel guilt of. She smiled as his hug tightened and she leaned against him. For a few minutes they stood there looking at the stars, each lost to their own thoughts.

"It is beautiful out there." He whispered. The silver light of the moon granted her garden an eerie, outlandish look. Just like the way the mortals described the fairy worlds. "You are beautiful." She smiled and turned to kiss him fully on the lips.

"You want to talk about it?" he stiffened and she knew that he hadn't been expecting the question. Long time ago they had come to and agreement. He would explain to her why Cassandra, her student, hated him so passionately, and she would never ask again. But it was time she broke that promise.

"You promised." He told her as he walked back into the room. She nodded expecting his answer.

"I did. But Matthias, you cannot go on like this, my love." She walked to him and got hold of his hand, bringing him back to the bed. "Maybe if you spoke of your dreams, it would get bet…"

"No it won't." he cut her off, his voice harder than usually. "They never will. The nightmares. They never should." And then in a lower voice "I deserve them."

"Methos, a thousand years have passed. You carry the guilt of things that cannot change as you have. When will you learn to live with them? It is a part of you. No matter how disgusted you are, no matter how you wished they never had happened, they have. Stop punishing your self like this. It isn't worth it." She tried to reason with him.

"How can you say this?" he shouted and once more leaped from the bed. She was of a mind to tell him to stop pacing for he was making her dizzy, but she restrained her self. She was going to make him understand today, and if all it took was her getting dizzy, then by the Gods he was worth it. He was useless to them like this. He had to understand at least that.

"How can you say that the lives of all those people, all those thousands of people isn't worth me being punished?" he went on.

"You are punishing your self, dear. They never asked you to."

"How could they, they are dead. _I_ killed them." He looked at her with eyes shinning with anger. She really did prefer him with his eyes closed. All of his intensity, power, age was lost with them shut.

"Yes you did. And if you hadn't someone else would have probably kill them. And if not they would have died anyway from sickness and old age."

"That is not an excuse!" he retorted and they fell in silence.

"Tell me, Methos." She said calmly. "Are you angry at your self because of what you did, those that you killed, or because you liked it and maybe fear that you still do? Are you angry that you forgot your reasons behind your killing rampage?" that had him frozen mid step. Score one to Lady Rebecca, she smiled to her self, just as Methos lowered his head and turned towards her.

"Maybe." He admitted and suddenly the only thing Rebecca could think was how old he looked at that moment.

"So did you liked it?" she asked

"Every minute of it." He told her as he knelt in front of her, his eyes locked into her own. "Every life I took, I savoured, the power I held while cutting their throats, taking upon me the decision of who was to live and die. I was the one choosing the who my brothers would play with, and those that we would sell or keep as slaves. And I enjoyed every minute of their death, their suffering, their fear. I owned them. Their bodies, their lives, their wills."

His eyes had grown so cold. They looked gold in the light of the moon, shinning as if in madness. But Rebecca knew better. This was no madness, this was power, power that had once been allowed free into the world. She wondered when he would understand that the fact he was able to control his less than flattering skills for so long, spoke volumes of what he was, and exactly what kind of power he could yield. After all he had won the most difficult battle that there was. The battle against him self. Now he only had to realise that this was a defeated enemy, a power there for him to use, but never again would it be allowed to come forth without him controlling it.

"What does this make me, if not some kind of a monster." He asked her, trepidation and disgust in his voice.

"It makes you a human" she smiled gently at him, as she caressed is dark hair. "Look at me, Methos" her hand kept him from lowering his head and escaping her eyes. "It makes you a human that has wronged and knows it. It makes you a human that will many more times again in the future make mistakes as severe if not worse."

Her eyes spoke of love to him. For him. His eyes spoke of judgement. "You want me to judge you? Is that it?" he closed his eyes to escape her. Yes that was what he wanted. To be judged by the world and he knew, he knew he would be found guilty and worthy only of a fate similar if not the same as the one his victims once had.

"I will judge you, if you want me to, since you are giving me the right to, but it won't help you any."

"It will." He whispered. "You have walked in this world nearly as long as I have. You know me, you know the world, you know Cassandra. Who would be more worthy of judging me?"

"And will you accept my judgment?" he lowered his head at her absolute tone.

"I will."

"Fine. But I want to know two things before I feel I can judge you."

"Anything."

"How did you come to be one of the Four, and why did you left them?" he gasped and he knew that after today she would never want to speak to him again, if he answered truthfully. And yet he had promised. After all it would be her right to send him away from her. He sighed and begun answering her questions.

As he spoke, Rebecca could not help but smile down at him. He looked surrendered, his head bowed, eyes closed, kneeling in front of her. He had willingly given his life to her. Hers to decide his future, hers to judge. She wondered if he knew what a wonderful gift this was. Probably not. And his story went on unfolding.

* * *

_The city was sleeping. A few torches provided some meagre light, mostly intensifying the shadows, but he didn't mind. It was preferable to him. The past fifty years he had spent in the shadows and darkness, he could very easily work with it. The others though, the mortals, couldn't. He was hidden in the shadows and would remain as such for as long needed. _

_He moved on, towards the palace, no one, not even the guards noticing him. No man noticed a shadow climbing over the wall that secured the palace, and the royal family. No servant walked around the great halls to stop him. So it was with great ease that he found himself standing like a ghost in front of the bed the King and his wife were sleeping. _

_It was the scream that alerted the king of the danger that was in his rooms. He jumped off the bed, reaching for his knife as his eyes tried to see what was wrong. What he saw in the light of the moon made his blood freeze. There, not six feet away from him his queen, crying and weeping, was forced into kneeling position by a strange man, that he mistook as an apparition in the beginning. He soon gathered his wits after the sort moments of shock. Already he could hear shouts and steps from all over the palace. Soon help would be on its way._

_"Who are you?" he asked the man._

_"Don't you remember?" the man asked with a cold voice. In the soft silver light he was able to see what looked like a blade touching his queen's neck._

_"I don't know who you are." He replied, certain he was dealing with a madman. After all, who would be as crazy as to come in the palace ad threaten the royal couple._

_"Do you love her?" the man asked. _

_"Of course. She is my wife." The king replied. _

_"Then you should have said goodbye to her." With a movement faster that he was able to understand the stranger cut the queen's throat, silencing her cries. The king just stood there of a moment, speechless, looking at his wife's body. In a moment of horror he realised that the same blade that had killed his wife was now in his throat. "You should remember who I am. Doesn't matter though. You will, very soon. This is revenge." Then he run out of the window, just as the soldiers entered the room, bringing torches with them. _

_In the middle of the room, the Queen laid dead, a pool of blood already formed around her, her eyes in her husband's left hand. _

* * *

"A week later, my brothers managed to find me again." Methos told her. "I was sitting in the throne, with the king on my feet, blinded of course." She wasn't surprised that his voice held no regret on his acts. That was revenge for a whole town. His town. His people. "I had killed every single being of that dratted town. Every man, woman child. And each time I first killed the mothers, then the children and lastly I would take the eyes of the father, after I had forced him to look at the murder. Each pair of eyes I then send to the King. Until the last day I killed all the men. Blinded as they were, it was easy.

"My brothers found me there, the garden of the palace littered with eyeless bodies, each house in the town, stinking from the decomposing dead families, and I was playing with the king. They were shocked."

* * *

_"You did all of this?" Kronos asked bewildered, and not a little sick of what he was seeing. Never mind the smell._

_"Yes."_

_"But why?" there was a hint of admiration in Caspian's voice_

_"Because I could. Because, their lives were mine to take. Because I am Death." He said, not once stopping running his knife over the still living King._

_"But, Methos, you are not like this!" Silas protest was met with the coldest of laughter._

_"And how would you know?" the man they had named Methos asked him. There was not an inch of humanity in him, anymore. And he knew it. "You think people can't change? Well you were wrong. When I met you, Silas, you were but an animal, living among them. Are you one now?" the man in question shook his head. "When I met Kronos he was sold to me as a slave. He is one no more. When you met me I was thought to be of the other World. I wasn't then. I am now."_

_"You speak nonsense, my friend." Kronos tried to reason with him. "You are hurt. These people hurt you once. You wanted revenge. You had it. Lets go home."_

_"Home?" Methos shouted. "I have no home. They took it from me. Again and again those animals took it from me. And now, by the gods, they will pay for their insolence. I am a God. I have been a God for more than a thousand years. It is time I remind them."_

_With a movement that was too fast to follow, the older immortal sunk his blade in the king's heart, who embraced death with all his heart, and moved away from them. Soon it was again only the three of them standing in the throne room, not quite sure what to do next._

* * *

"I burned the town down. I remember it as if it was yesterday. It took it three days to burn to the ground. I remember standing there, feeling good, knowing that every single soul had died knowing who their killer was," Methos eyes were still of the most brilliant gold, as he was seeing the flames again. And through his eyes, Rebecca could see the fire as well.

"The sun was black for three days, and the moon seemed to me painted red from the blood I had spilled, and I thrived on it. The Gods of Night accepted my revenge, my acts, me. The sand around the city turned black as the ashes covered it. It was a sight to behold. You could not even see the mountains that were on the north from the smoke lingering around the city. It was exhilarating. It was grand and it didn't appease my wrath one bit.

"I knew it then, that I wouldn't, couldn't stop there. People had believed I was Death for so long, that at that moment, realising I had just exterminated a town numbering to 8000 souls, any doubts I might had were dissolved. I was Death as certainly as the Sun came out every day." He stopped there, visibly trying to calm him, trying to gain control of his feelings, of his wants.

"Do you regret it?" she asked him in a silent voice. Rebecca too was trying to control her self. Trying not to shed tears for his people, for his enemies, for himself.

"Not a moment of it." The harsh replied stunned her. She had thought… "They deserved it as much as my people deserved to died, because I was a good King." Not at all then. "They destroyed my city for 50 years worth of wealth. I destroyed their city for 50 years of living in pain, darkness and guilt for still being alive when my city was dead. I paid the price for being loved, powerful, accepted. They paid the price for being greedy. We are square."

"If you don't regret their death, then what do you regret? What are those nightmares of?" Rebecca had gathered him in her arms, in a try to sooth his anger, his pain. His lust of Death and blood.

"The nightmares are of those I killed after. Those that died by my sword the next thousand years. They needn't have died. I needn't have killed them." Methos sighed. "I regret turning my brothers into monsters. I regret forcing them to become like me because they thought I was worth being with." He said in a mere whisper.

"You are worth it. Never think you aren't." Rebecca told him.

"I was mad!" he raised his voice. "Riv.Ka, I forced them into something they might hadn't become if not for me. If they hadn't tried to save me instead of killing me. I am not worth it."

"They tried to save you, just as you once had. When you helped Silas, you didn't turn into an animal, a wild man as he was. When you saved Kronos, it wasn't by turning yourself into a slave. You helped them by shaping them after your own image." Rebecca pointed to him. "It wasn't your fault they decided to follow your way in those years. As you say, those were different times. Harsher, maybe. And they were free. They could decide for themselves. It wasn't your fault they found it easier to turn into lawless and emotionless beings as you were, instead of helping you find your faith in humanity again."

"They had no choice. I was their saviour. Not once but twice. And the world had changed so much since the last time we had been together. What with us preying on our own tribe. They thought that I could give them a way out."

"You did. If I remember correctly you weren't hunting other immortals at the time, and when you met one, he or she wouldn't dare to challenge you."

"True. But the way out of the game was a way to hell." In more ways than one, he silently told himself.

"This doesn't lead us anywhere." She sighed and raised herself from the bed. He stayed kneeling there, his eyes following her every move. "I keep explaining to you that all is not as black as you see, you keep discarding my words."

"I told you…"

"Yes, yes." She cut him off, not really knowing what he wanted to say, but reasonably certain it would be somewhere among the lines of 'I told you so.' "Tell me, why did you leave them. Your brothers. And I will give you your so much sought after judgement." His head snapped up and fixed her with an intense glance that would have been impressive, if it hadn't been the nth time he was doing it the same evening.

"You do not want to hear why. Trust me on this." He said, and his voice was quivering.

"Oh, but I do, dear. I do." She watched him getting up and walking to the window, as if it was a place he could relaxed somehow. Seconds passed to minutes. Long minutes and Rebecca decided he wasn't going to tell her. A loud bang from downstairs and long shouts alerted her that someone had come to the abbey. She smiled happily as she was rather certain of who that might be. After all only one person she knew created so much noise and fuss. As the quickening alerted them both to the arrival of a certain mischievous she-thief, Methos stunned her again by answering her question.

"I got bored."

It was there, one standing by the window, looking as the sun once more walked through his path in the land of the living, the other standing some feet away, both unmoving, both with grim expressions on their faces, that Amanda found them as she banged the door open.

"Rebecca I am…oh God! You are naked! Rebecca! Matthias!" she exclaimed in a scandalised voice before noticing their sombre expressions.

"I forgive you." Rebecca said silently, at the moment not paying the least attention to her student. "And I find you unworthy of ever dying." By the window Methos stood stunned. He never expected forgiveness. "But the day will come, Matthias, when you will realise that it was not in my power to judge you, or even forgive you. Only you and those affected by you have this right. For all it's worth in though, I will never forget. And neither must you."

She left him there, standing, unaware of the tears that had found their way on his cheeks, as she got dressed hurriedly, and took hold of Amanda that couldn't tear her eyes of the oldest immortal.

"Err, did I come in a bad moment?" Amanda asked, not having missed the unfamiliar speech these two used, or the perfect body this peculiar lover of her teacher had. She sighed wistfully, as she allowed Rebecca to lead her out of the room, certain that she would have both that body and an explanation of what had happened in there in due time.

"Moment yes." Rebecca agreed, not oblivious to the lust Amanda's eyes held. "But the timing was perfect. Come. I am sure you have much to tell me of your journeys."

"Much yes. But something tells me _you_ have far more to tell _me." _Amanda grinned at the innocent face her teacher wore as they walked down the stairs.

* * *

_Hope you liked it. Reviews, as always, are welcomed._

_I had written some notes on my previous try to upload this chapter, but unfortunately I don't remember now all that I had written. Obviously a great than you to all those that reviewed._

_To Village-Mystic__. I had answered your review, but the only things I remember writing are that I did some research on Thera. Though I still don't know when Thera became her name, I couldn't find another one for the island to use, being older. Thus Thera it shall remain. Also, Thera doesn't mean fear, but the hunt. As in lets go hunting, kind of thing. There were settlements on the island since before the Volcano's great eruption somewhere around 1628BC. Obviously this date is still under much debate. Excavations in the site of Akrotiri in the 30s-40s have unearthed a settlement, predating the eruption, that proves, along with writings and pottery from other areas (such as Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia) that Thera existed at least as long as Minoan Crete. That means that the island was occupied since 2000 BC if not earlier still. _

_One more note on the Volcano. It's eruption is said to be like the eruption of the Krakatoa Volcano in the 1880s, but far more violent. The Krakatoa eruption lasted 3 months and led to the destruction of a whole Island, literally sinking it. Something similar happened to Thera, but it must have been a shorter and far more powerful eruption, probably instigating all the Atlantis myths Plato describes on his 'About Nature'. Imagine that ashes from the volcano have been found in Crete, Egypt and even as far as Greenland, making scientists believe that this was the reason for the Skies Darkening in the Bible story of Moses and the plagues of Egypt, as well as the writings found in Egypt in the time period of RamsesII (the pharaoh that send the Hebrews and Moses away from Egypt)._

_I remember mentioning that since all these matters are still in debate, and nothing is certain, I will be using whatever theory applies besting my story and imagination. If there was anything else, I am really sorry but I do not remember._


	8. Chapter 7

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Highlander. You see I am unlucky. For now. Whose knows later on?_

_Few! The eighth chapter. I almost can't believe I did it. Honestly I have been writing this for a little more than a month now. First part practically wrote itself. Second part was hell. I think I changed it some 5 times. Knew the ending but I just couldn't get the story towards that point._

_I am sorry for the delay. I wish I could promise it will never happen again. I can't so I won't. I hope you'll find it was worth the wait. _

* * *

_****_

_**And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.**_

_**And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.**_

_**And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, **_

_**that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.**_

_**And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.**_

_**And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth:**_

_**and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake**_

_**And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.**_

_Revelation 8:01-8:06_

**October 1940**

* * *

Let me tell you a story. It's about a man. This man will certainly seem to you very special, and maybe he is, but he always wanted to be just a guy and to live one more day.

You see, that man is an immortal.

No, no. Trust me. Immortals do exist. They have existed like for ever. They go as back as us mortals do, and maybe even further down the millennia.

Yes. You are right. Well, almost. They live for ever, unless they get beheaded.

Yes it is cruel...yes you are right. They are not really immortal, but for a man that has lived for 5000 years any other name seem less appropriate.

Yes, 5000 years. He has seen civilisations rise and fall. Uncountable natural catastrophes. Volcanoes, earthquakes, floods. You know, the biblical flood wasn't the biggest one. In fact it wasn't even a flood. That imbecile Noah just lost his way and instead of going to Nineveh he ended on the other side of the Arabic sea.

No, no. It is the truth. I should know. He told me.

Yes, Methos of course. Who else?

Methos? That is his name. 5000 years worth of history.

I am not lying. I would never lie to you!

What makes you think so, my little Princess?

Ah! Older and wiser people than you haven't caught on that ambiguity.

Yes you are right of course, little one. Age doesn't always make the wisest.

Anyway, even though Methos is the name all know him by that is not the name he was born with.

No. I don't know it. No one does. It was common in ancient times among many civilisations to hide the real name of the child, in order to protect it.

Yes. It was considered it gave you power over the person whose name you knew.

Mmm...I suppose you do have power over me, little one, but I know your name too, sweet Elpida _(=hope in Greek)_. Remember? Your mother and I chose it together.

Maybe. Maybe you do have a secret name, known only to your mother, to keep you safe. Mmm...smile little one. Never be afraid to smile and hope. Always hope.

Yes, yes. About Methos. What is he? Everything. In 5000 thousand years he has been everything. Done everything.

Yes! He's been a King, more than once...and a servant, yes. Does that sound strange, sweetie?

Honey wars always are about at some place on Earth. He, who has travelled everywhere, has been captured, killed, enslaved unimaginable times.

No, no. Don't feel sad for him. He isn't worth it.

Why? For he has wronged so many times. Fought the wrong wars. Killed the wrong people.

No...no. Sometimes death is the only solution to a problem. As bad as that might sound.

Yes. Sometimes, even knowingly, he has become a murderer.

Little children? There was a time that he didn't understand the glory of life, so yes. He killed even little children.

Fear him? Yes, you should. He is very dangerous. But nowadays he is hiding. No one can find him, for he doesn't want to be found.

I? How did I meet him? Err...he is the oldest and that makes him the most powerful. And you can feel his power, honey. If you know what to look for, if you keep your eyes open and your senses honed, maybe, just maybe you will see him.

Easy? No. I know of men that spent a lifetime next to him and never were the wiser. He knows how to hide. I...I was lucky. He allowed me to see him, and I was looking for him.

Yes. My...mother told me of this story. When I met him he was selling books. In the streets.

Yes like mister Dimitris. From door to door with a push cart. I bumped on him. Rather literally. Now, will you stop asking questions? I am supposed to be telling you a story here. Your mother will be very angry with us both if you stay up till late. And I am sure you want to hear at least one story of him.

Which story shall I tell you? Hmm...I think that...yes! I will tell you about the time he wandered the world with a young boy at your age, leading him to the city he was the protector of.

Yes. The boy was one of the immortals. But not yet. He had first to grow up and die a violent death. After that he would reborn into an immortal.

Yes, it is sad, but that is the way it works for them. Endless life has a huge price, sweetie. Anyway. Then man led the boy through many lands in order to take him to the Holly City.

What? Oh...no, no. In fact it was a few days travel by ship from the place he found him to the city, you see the boy was born in Crete and they were going to what is now know as Santorini. He had some other places to go to.

Yes. Now hush. Or I won't be telling the story.

So. Where was I? Ah...yes. They were travelling through the desert in Asia and when they reached the sea they would seek passage on a ship to take them to Santorini and TahDjeser.

What? Yes that was the name of the city. Listen to me now...

* * *

"_Who is he?" The young boy asked suddenly. He had been silent those past weeks since he had been brought here. In this amazing place of spirits and shadows._

"_He is everything and nothing." His teacher told him. "He is a God, he is just a man. He is one of us." _

"_That doesn't make any sense." The boy frowned. He didn't like riddles. He didn't like not being able to understand what was said around him. _

"_It wasn't suppose to." The man agreed._

"_What is he, what are you that is like him? What am I?" the boy asked again._

"_What has he told you?" the boy looked thoughtful for a moment, clearly his mind drifting back into a hot day, in the desert with his only company a spirit, for he could have been nothing else, that man with the pale skin and the golden-green eyes. His protector. The man had looked in the sky, directly into the sun and had not been blinded by its intensity. Surely no one but a God could do that, the boy had rationalised._

_He remembered the man's voice, deep, ethereal, not of this cruel world. '_What do you see when you look around you?_' Pnevma (=spirit in Greek) had asked him. He had answered truthfully. Sand, blue sky, and more sand. Pnevma had laughed. '_I see life_.' He had argued that this was the desert. There was no life. Only death. Pnevma had laughed again but did not contradict him. '_Someday you'll see life in death as well._' He had told him and the boy had just known that the words carried hidden knowledge. Secret, even. _

_He had asked then, who he was. The Pnevma had lowered his head and stared directly at him. '_Names carry too much power, boy. Why should I tell you mine?_' the boy didn't know what to answer. '_What is your name?_' he had been asked. He had truthfully told him that he had no name. The man had smiled. In time, he had told him, in time he would know what his name would be. He had believed him._

"_He told me I was like him. He said I would never die. That I could live to the end of time. He named me Kronos, but he never told me his name." the man was surprised for a minute but then shook his head._

"_He would, wouldn't he?" he muttered. _

"_What am I?" the boy insisted._

"_You are a boy. You are an immortal. You can live for ever if you don't get killed." The man said. The boy remembered the last words of the Spirit. _'Remember, boy. You can have all the time you want. If only you live. You can live to the end of time. You can be time...Kronos, that is your name, boy, from now on. Live, Kronos. Grow stronger. Fight another day.' _Then he had disappeared in the labyrinth this castle, this town was. _

"_He said the same thing." _

"_He should have." The man agreed. _

"_How old is he?" the boy was surprised to see the other man looking away, sadness filling his eyes._

"_Very old. Older that he thinks he is."_

"_He said that you were the..."_

"_Oldest, yes...he would say that." The man agreed. "Do you know what they call him out there? He has many names. They Kings call him Khery Seshtah, master of secrets, for the priests of gods he is Wab, the pure one. For the people he is Se Ankh Neter Im. A man on whom a god lives. He has many names, boy. And you should feel privileged that he gave you such a powerful name."_

"_I am. And you didn't answer my question."_

"_Which one?" the man said amused._

"_He called you Arhon. I know this word. It is in my language. It means Lord. Are you his lord?"_

"_He thinks I am." Arhon replied. _

"_Why?" the boy said clearly confused. "Every one here, even you, answer to him, but he doesn't seem to realise." The boy said. Arhon looked at him differently somehow, as if he was amazed, as if he just saw him clearly for the first time._

"_He was right. Again. You have the gift. How fitting the name." the boy was just barely able to catch the words. Words that clearly he wasn't meant to hear. He ignored them for now. "I come from the same lands as you do boy. I have walked on these lands for more than three thousand winters. When I met them..."_

"_Them?"_

"_He travelled with a companion" Arhon said, a move of his hand explaining that this wasn't important. "So I met them some thousand years ago and we set to make this place, a haven of all of us that share the same gift, the same curse. And he went out bringing here immortals, to live protected. They made this a haven. What in these parts of the world became known as the TahDjeser._

"_The sacred land." The boy whispered._

"_Good boy. The sacred land indeed. A land where no fighting is aloud. None of us is allowed to raise a blade against another. There has never been spilt one drop of blood in this place. They made sure that it wouldn't."_

"_How?" the boy hang after each word._

"_You are too young to learn, boy. Suffice to say that they gave away all that that they were to make sure that we would have a haven for ourselves. A place all of us can hide, and live with no worries of the outside world. We are all welcome here. We can forget the passage of time here." Arhon smiled a self pleased smile. _

"_And you rule it?"_

"_To ensure that this place is kept true." Arhon agreed. "You see, he doesn't remember."_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_When he cast the spell he gave away unimaginable power. Power that none of us will ever gain. Power only they controlled. But something went wrong, or maybe it didn't. He died. And that was his first death. That day the Gods died with him. Magic died with him. For they were all of that, and so much more. And they gave it all away, for us. Their children. You ask me of his name. What would you do it if I told you, Kronos? What would you do if you held that power over him?"_

"_I would guard it. Forget it even. He saved me. My life. I'd do all I could for him."_

"_Maybe he was right to tell you what you are. Usually none of us knows, until we are re-born into it." Arhon said thoughtfully. _

"_What about the companion?" the boy asked. He had noticed that the old man would jump from 'him' to 'they' even in the same sentence._

"_She...I don't really know. She just disappeared. They both did. But while he came back after some decades, I never found out about her. Maybe she is around here somewhere. Maybe she is on the other side of the world. I don't know. The magic they used, the power they unleashed..." Arhon for a moment was lost in thought, reliving those never to return days. "It was hard to control at best, totally unpredictable in the worst."_

"_So the worst happened?" _

"_To my eyes? Yes. To theirs? One can only guess."_

"_And what about me? Why do you think I am special?"_

"_You heard that, didn't you? Very well. I will tell you." Arhon looked at him again, as if trying to decipher the future that had been decided for him. "You are time." He begun, his voice low, secretive, hypnotic "As long as you live he will be safe. As long as you go on he will not remember. You hold the key and the key is him. When the end of time comes, you will know. When the end of time comes, you will set him free. You are the end of time, boy. Never forget it. He chose you, to be his keeper. His name exists in all of us. We are all part of him. He is everything. And he is the half. There will be a time when he will be completed again. There will be a time when he will be full again. And you will know when that time is."_

_The boy was silently looking at him, with eyes wide, taking in, sucking every word that was said. Arhon smiled and saw for himself what his teacher had seen. The boy held power. Power that would enable him to sense the future. Power that would fry him in the end. Interesting times were coming. Times when the world would sink in darkness. Times when Death would rule. But they would end, as they always did, to give time for peace and prosperity. And they would be gone too as well, and to be found again he would have to die. He knew it only too well. There was a reason why no immortal lived no more than five thousand years. And there was a reason why no one but the keeper of the secrets of their race knew this. He knew when he would die and when the next keeper would come forth. Ahead of that he could not see. It was not his time to see. _

_He picked up the boy from the floor, thin and still too small for his age and walked down the isles. The boy, he knew, had been a good choice. One that would remain in time. As would the Teacher. And in four thousand years the five thousand years circle would end. And the Teacher would remember everything. And would start looking for her. And would become one. In the end they would all become one. _

"_You, boy, you have the key. When time comes you will remember. For now forget all that was said." Arhon touched the boy's forehead and Kronos blinked several times before he fell asleep. "When time comes boy you will return to him, and be with him forever."_

* * *

Why did he leave the boy there? To be safe, sweetie. Those were dangerous times for parentless children. He took him where he knew he would be safe.

Didn't I tell you? He woke up in a beach in a near by island. People found him there, half drowned. He couldn't remember a thing. Not his name, not where he came from, nothing.

_Where am I? What happened?_

The fishermen that took him in said that the there was a terrible storm that lasted for two days. They had never seen something like that before. They said that maybe he was a passenger to a ship. They had heard that one was set to arrive sometime that week. It never did.

Maybe he was the only survivor.

Maybe he was blessed by the Gods.

He lived with them for some decades and then set sale North-East.

Why?

He said that something drew him towards that place.

_I know it sounds crazy, but I have to go. _

He said that he knew something was waiting for him there.

_I just know I have to go._

So he left.

Family? No. His wife had died. Childless. Anyway. He travelled towards North-East until he came upon an island. He found Arhon there, who was two thousand years old, then. The older immortal took him in and explained him what he was, told him of the city and that it was made by their gods

_Don't you remember, my friend? The Goddess? The God?._

No, darling. Christianity wasn't created that back. It was made around 500AD, by the Great Constantine, first King of Constantinople. Byzantium.

Hush dear. I'll tell you about Jesus Christ some other time.

Yes he did meet him. But this is not our story, is it?

Methos stayed with the older immortal for some years in the empty halls of the city, no one else had yet reached her. No one else had yet felt the cities call. Then he set out to find other immortals and led them there.

_Not all can sense the magic around them. Not all can understand nature's calling, and messages. You are different, my friend. I need you to bring other immortals here. Find them and take care not to reveal yourself to mortals._

He would travel for long years, searching for immortals that were hiding in the mortal world and tell them of the city. Children he would take them there by him self. In between he would sometimes meet a woman he fell in love with, or a tribe that he enjoyed spending time with, and would settle down for ten, twenty or thirty years. More than that was dangerous.

No. None of his wives or friends would know who-what he was. Too dangerous. They few times the secret was out, he was hunted, killed, enslaved. No, it wasn't wise to reveal his secret. Not then, not now. That was the reason the immortal city was built after all. Those thousands years before TahDjeser fell, he learned how to blend in anywhere he was. How to hide his secret, to assume different personas. It was what it took to survive.

He seemed to draw attention and trouble to himself nevertheless.

_Me friend, it is who you are. People, they might not see the messages that are around that clear, but they know, somehow, they always know those that are touched by the Gods. Those that are special. Never turn down their help, their comfort. It's not good to be alone, my friend._

Some times he was accepted in temples, where they would teach him magic. They would teach him the ways to enter the other world, to communicate with the Gods. And he would always surpass his teachers and leave to seek more knowledge.

Special? That's what many people thought about him. But he always thought he was just a guy. Maybe a bit more tuned to the supernatural but that didn't make him special. There were other people that could see the future, like his teacher Arhon. There were others that could draw or sing as if touched by a god. Those were just abilities, and that was just what he had. It didn't make him special. It made him just a human person.

I? I think that he is what he is.

You think so? He would be flattered if he heard you.

Did I? Yes, you are right. I did say TahDjeser fell after a thousand years. It was, I believe ten years after he had brought that boy there.

What happened? Well, though he did lead immortals there, thought he did tell them that they shouldn't speak of the city to mortals, some of them had families. Some of them did share the secret with mortals. At some point it became known that there was a place built by Gods, and many set out to find it. At some point immortals widely heard of that city as a gathering place for all immortals, a city ruled by the most powerful of all. The first of all.

At some point Methos – who wasn't named as such then – met an immortal that ruled a city. The immortal had heard of the city and all he wanted was to rule it. So when Methos told him where it was – as he would tell any immortal that wished to go there – the Immortal told his army of this city that is very rich and powerful and if they were to control it they would control all the world. Even the Gods would have to answer to them.

* * *

"_Open the gates!" the voice was young and powerful. The owner as strong and powerful as they had thought he'd be. The Student and the Teacher watched with worried frowns the shape that came closer and closer to the great doors. The teacher could already feel the sign of that man, and the Student understood from his stiffening that the man coming was an immortal as well. A shared glance confirmed the suspicion. It was the Gatherer._

_Not very long after the man fell exhausted to the arms of the immortals that run out to meet him. They brought him back, questioning frowns upon them. Everyone knew the Gatherer. He was usually the one who told them of the city. The one to give them instructions or lead them there. Everyone knew him by sight alone. But now...now he was too thin. Gaunt, as if he hadn't eaten for days. Even more worrisome was the blue sparkles that still worked to mend damages on him. Everyone knew that this man was the fastest to heal, the fastest to revive. One question was in everyone's mind as they made way through the crowed that gathered to take him inside. _

_What the hell had happened to him?_

_It took another ten hours before they were able to find out._

_The man who was known with many names, but none was his own, woke up in a haze. Around him he could see people moving but his mind couldn't register their names. It did register the signs of immortal beings. _

_One of the shadows moved closer to him and he jumped up in fright. He couldn't help it. Not really. He ended up curled into a ball, his back on a stone wall, rocking back and forth his eyes unfocused. _

_Around him people stared at each other and at him and muttered worried. This couldn't be good._

"_My friend, what happened to you?" the voice, or better the tone of the voice seemed familiar and the Gatherer looked up to the man who spoke it. The face was gentle, white beard hiding the too thin lips he knew that were there. Long straight silver hair falling to his back. _

"_Where am I?" the question stunned all who were in the room._

"_You are in TahDjeser." The white haired man answered, as he moved closer to him. "Don't you remember coming here?" he laid his hand on the man's shoulder. That was a mistake. A big mistake. The Gatherer flinched away, violently shoving the man off him._

"_Don't touch me." The voice was full of self loathing and despair. _

"_What happened to you? You are gone for ten years now." The white haired man, to whom now he could assign a name – his mind begun working again – asked. "You are never gone that long, unless you settle down somewhere. I bet this isn't the case this time."_

"_What gave you that idea?" Arhon smiled. His friend seemed to come back to his wry self._

"_What happened?" he asked again. The younger man got up and walked to a near by window._

"_We must leave TahDjeser." He said so silently that for a minute Arhon wasn't so certain he had said anything at all._

"_Leave? Why?"_

"_I stumbled upon an Imortal." The man said, anger obvious in his voice. "He was a new one, so I told him of everything. He decided it wasn't enough."_

"_What do you mean, it wasn't enough?" _

"_He wanted more proof." The Gatherer evaded the question. "Problem is that this man is a king. He is used to get all he wants."_

"_He wants to take over TahDjeser." Arhon said thoughtfully. The Gatherer nodded affirmatively._

"_And has an Army of about 5000. We are what? 800 currently?"_

"_879."_

"_Yes, well. No way we can stand up to them." Stunned silence followed his words._

"_But no mortal can find the city." Kronos said baffled. Why leave? They were safe here._

"_No, my boy." A woman walked up to them and hugged the Gatherer. "They can't find the city unless they are invited or lead here."_

"_RivKa is right." Arhon said. "And that immortal of yours can feel the way in."_

"_Quite. So you see, we have to go. Now. I think we might have a few days but no more than five. We ought to get going."_

"_But they are mortals." Kronos tried to understand why this was so bad. "Even if they are thousands we could defeat them. They can't harm us!"_

"_Kronos," RivKa looked at him in the eyes. She wasn't very tall and neither was he. "We do hurt when injured. And some injuries we can't deal with. Some injuries take a long time to heal, and some never heal. They are too many. And I don't know many who would gladly slaughter their way through 5000 people. Even if they are mortals."_

"_And don't forget that not all are immortal. Not yet. Some, like you are still mortal. Some like you could die for the first time and..."_

"_If it is to protect our home, I would give me life." Kronos said proudly. The three immortals smiled gently at him._

"_And that is very commendable." The Gatherer answered. "But I prefer to keep my life as it were. And Kronos, what about the others? Those who are only children? You are not that old your self, but what of Ippoliti or Isouara? They are not even ten winters old. You can't endanger them into freezing in time in so small bodies, incapable of caring for themselves." _

"_Then why don't they go? But the rest of us should stay behind and fight." The Gatherer smiled sadly. _

"_Let me tell you what, Kronos. Irad is not going to take this city. I promise you this. But you have to go."_

"_I don't want to." Kronos said stubbornly._

"_It's not a request." The Gatherer glared him. He didn't need this now. "You will go with RivKa and Arhon and the rest of us. And you will go quietly. Do I make my self clear?"_

"_Yes." Was the subdued answer. _

"_Good. Now go tell everyone. We have to hurry." The boy left the room, clearly put off. He knew that the Gatherer could get angry, but he had never, never spoken to him in this manner. Kronos was seething inside. He didn't want to go. He didn't like the outside world. The other immortals had told him about it. It was cruel and dirty. But he would tell the others. And he would try to persuade them to fight. They were immortals. They couldn't be defeated. _

_In the room three immortals looked at each other. They knew that there would be some who would be willing to stay and fight. But they also knew that TahDjeser was lost. They wouldn't kill five thousand people in order to defend a city that they could return to in some centuries. _

"_Right." Arhon said after a minute of silence. "I think I better go and talk to the rest of us as well. Maybe send a scout or two."_

"_Tell them to be careful. If they feel the immortal they are to come back. No heroics. They don't stand a chance."_

"_Tell me." RivKa led him to the bed as soon as Arhon left the room. She was a new immortal, not over a hundred. As most of them, it had been he that had found her not a year from her death. She was married then, but she didn't fare any better than the slaves her husband owned. She still had the marks to prove it. The Gatherer had taken her away. Brought her in their city and taught her of her people. Since then she had at occasion wander in the outside world, but she would always return back. To her home. _

"_What?"_

"_I know you, Danel (=Judge of God in Hebrew. Survived in our time as Daniel.). Well, even if I didn't know you it wouldn't too difficult to discern that there is something wrong."_

"_I don't know what you mean." Danel told her._

"_You wake up screaming. You flinch when the man you trust most touches you. You've been gone for ten years. What happened? I know you heal the fastest and yet your wounds weren't healed even four hours after we brought here. I am not a fool, please don't treat me as one." Irritation and worry was mingled together in her voice._

"_Look, RivKa. I just don't want to talk about it. Ok?" he raised him self and went to put on some clothes._

"_How long?" she didn't have to say how long what. He knew what she meant._

"_I am not certain. If you say I am missing for ten years, then I suppose about a year. Eleven months, maybe." _

"_It sucks, doesn't it?" the woman said sadly._

"_What sucks?" _

"_Immortality when you want revenge. He deserves to die, but..." A smile climbed his face. That little detail they, Arhon and he, had never disclosed. _

"_RivKa, don't worry yourself with it. I have my way. It will be revenge enough if I prevent him from taking over the City." _

"_I can't stop worrying." She protested. "You know I..." his fingers pushed away a stray strand of hair from her face._

"_Yes I do." He kissed her lightly on her lips. "Now go. You have to get ready." She raised and moved to the door._

"_Danel?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_Pease be careful...when they come." She told him and left the room. In the solitude and silence the Gatherer smiled a tender smile. _

_She did know him too well. _

_Yet he shouldn't, couldn't bother his mind with her only at this time. He had a job to do and by the Gods he..._

* * *

"You can stop now. She is asleep."

The woman was not very tall, she reached only up to his shoulders, neither was she very beautiful; hard life did that to mortals. Especially women too poor to get food every day. But he loved her. For her black eyes that reminded him of coals on fire when she was angry. He loved her for her kind heart that had allowed her to still be in love with life even if the Gods had been cruel to her. That same heart that had raised this beautiful child amidst misery and had accepted him as her husband and father of her child. She had trusted him to be good to them both.

He hadn't let them down.

But most of all he loved her for her smile. That tender and truly happy smile that lit her face whenever she looked at her daughter. Whenever he was playing with her-their child. He loved her for that brilliant smile that lit her face as no sun could, whenever she locked eyes with him. That same smiled that made the sun rise inside him as well.

He owed her for that. He owed her a lot of things. With her he had a family. A true family.

"I know. But I didn't want to leave her yet." He raised and hugged her gently. "Have I told you how much I love you today?"

"Must have slipped your mind." She teased him. They shared a smile, a last glance towards their daughter, and made their way towards the bedroom.

"I must rectify that, no?" he laid her gently on their bed. "And it so happens I know exactly how." He purred in her black hair, as his slender hands moved to slowly undress her.

"Mm...I can't wait."

Her hands dived beneath his sweater, exploring unblemished skin, as he kissed her slowly around the neck. She moaned and her hands dropped momentarily from their task of unbuttoning his pans – the sweater had already gone – when he licked and sucked her earlobe. After sort moments she gathered herself and with a move that would please any Graeco-Roman fight athlete, she turned them around, pinning him on the lumpy mattress.

"I thought I was the one who should repent." He told between gasps, as she caressed him everywhere with her hands, her lips, her hair.

"And who told you that you beneath me, in my mercy, isn't repent?" she whispered in his ear making him shudder from pleasure, if only in her words.

"Ah...you have a wicked mind, wife." His hands came to rest on her thighs as she straightened for a moment. They stayed like this for a while, each admiring the other, loving each other through the eyes.

"Lets see exactly how wicked I can be, husband." Her words didn't brake the spell that had fallen over them. They simply brought a smile, a truly satisfied smile in his face.

A woman after his heart, he thought. A woman who owned his heart. After that there was no time for more coherent thoughts.

* * *

_Gods! 6000 words! 16 pages! Well? Am I forgiven? I certainly hope so. Do let me know._


	9. Chapter 8a

_**Disclaimer: **Not mine. I just play with them. _

_This is the first part of one chapter that came out too big, so I thought I split it up. Next part will be up in a few days, probably._

* * *

_**The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.**_

_**And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;**_

_**And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.**_

_**And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;**_

_**And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.**_

_**And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.**_

_Revelation 8:07-8:12_

* * *

****

He was drinking beer and listening to blues. Not at all surprising since he was in Joe's bar. Which in it self wasn't peculiar. The bar – whether it was in Paris or Seacouver didn't matter – had become a place he felt comfortable in. Despite the occasional immortal meeting. The bar, as it were, was half empty today. It was Tuesday after all. That means almost a week had gone by since Mac had gone off.

Methos, despite himself, smiled.

Maybe those had been the best news in these past years he had known the man. Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, had finally gone past his name. His identity. Maybe now they would have a moment of peace. No more stupid immortals with a grudge, no more grand-immortal centres where ever the man settled down. No more danger in him staying with Joe.

Of course the Highlander could have been thoughtful enough to let his best friends – not him, he could find him no matter where he was if he was inclined to do so, and he wasn't – to know where he is. Especially Joe. But then the Highlander wasn't known for his thoughtfulness.

A child, a mere child, Methos thought. His thoughts would have continued down the same road if the alarm of a nearing immortal hadn't gone off in his head.

Amanda.

Methos smiled, while he continued sipping from his beer. She hadn't left yet. Still hoping that her gallant knight would send a word. If only that he is ok. His smile turned into a smirk. No chance in hell.

"Amada!" Joe exclaimed from his place behind the bar just as the door opened and the beautiful immortal walked in. "Didn't you feel her?" he then asked Methos. He had been watching him for sometime, wondering what the old man might be thinking and he hadn't looked up at the door, or in fact even tense. It was as if he wasn't an immortal.

"Of course he felt me." Amanda told him as she sat down next to the Old Guy. "Joe, what are you talking about?"

"He didn't tense, didn't look up, or indeed acknowledge your presence." Joe explained and then stared hard at him. Methos shrugged and smiled enigmatically.

"Oh, his up to his old ticks, I suspect." Amanda replied when it became obvious that he wouldn't. "Imagine that the first time I met him I thought he was a pre-immortal!"

"What?" Joe exclaimed just as Methos head shot up in protest. "Amanda!"

"What, dear? Duncan is no longer around so it doesn't matter if you tell him." She told him a most sweet voice.

Methos looked at her hard. There was only one thought that passed his mind in that moment and that could very well be summed up in a few words. 'Damn that infernal woman!'

"What does this have to do with Mac?" Joe asked perplexed.

"Listen, Joe," Methos said, hoping that in this manner he would be able to control the discussion for a bit. "what I will tell you is for no ones ears. Ok? You won't write a single word of it, understand?"

"Sure, Adam." Joe nodded, thinking how ironic it was calling the man in front of him that. The transformation had taken place in a few seconds, and there was nothing left from the calm, young man named Adam Pierson. In front of him Methos, the oldest immortal, stood, with no doubt, just as a while ago Adam was drinking his beer. He was always enchanted by this ability the man possessed. A true, living, breathing, human Chameleon.

"You know that all immortals have certain abilities – or maybe you don't." he corrected him self when he saw Joe looking at him stunned.

"Certain abilities?"

"Yes. Like Cassandra and her infernal Voice, or Sean with his understanding of the psyche, Amanda and her stealing. That sort of things." He explained.

"Thank you very much!" Amanda huffed from next to him, earning a smile from Joe.

"Hey! I meant that as a compliment." Methos protested.

"Clearly you ability isn't complimenting a lady." Joe told him, laughing. He earned a glare for his trouble. "Ok, ok. So what is your ability."

"His Quickening." Amanda said, clearly wanting to pay him back. If he was allowed to say something about her, then so would she. "He can manipulate his Quickening."

For a while a silence spread over the three friends. Joe, for he didn't know what to say, Amanda, for she had said all that she meant to and Methos trying to persuade himself that killing Amanda would do him no good. Joe would have figured it out sooner or later, no matter how abbreviated he told the tale.

"Manipulate your quickening? I've never heard of something like this happening before." Joe whispered.

"And chances are you won't hear it again." Amanda told him. "I think he is the only one able to do it. At least Rebecca was certain of it."

"She was right." Methos told them. "The only immortal I know with a similar ability is Cassandra. Though her power is manipulating another immortal's quickening. She can't control her own."

"So you can control your own."

"I can control any ones." Methos stunned them. Amanda could not help thinking just how much the Old Man was hiding from them, and just how much he was. Joe, on the other hand, was flabbergast and rightly so. If what he heard was true, and there was no reason why it shouldn't be, then...

"Why didn't you want Mac to know?" a sudden thought entered his mind.

"He wouldn't be able to understand it. He would start thinking that I am something that I am not and there is not point in that" Methos shrugged. "And he would want me to teach him."

"Wouldn't you?"

"I can't. He doesn't have the ability." Methos told him, going back to his drink, hoping that this conversation would stop right here and now. When he saw Joe looking at him – or at least trying to look as if he wasn't staring at him – he knew that the game was up. Damn Amanda again. "What, Joe?"

"Exactly what does it mean to control your quickening and another immortal's?" The watcher in him reeled for the information he would gather this night. Praised be Amanda, indeed.

"It means that I can conceal it, making it look powerless, subdued, like a new immortal, or indeed of a pre-immortal." Methos explained, though it was obvious it pained him to do so. But then again, he trusted Joe, if not with his head, then with his life – as long as he would wake up again – and Amanda already knew some of it. "It also means I can tell one quickening from the other, so that I can recognise any immortal that might enter my range. I can also affect them, change the layout of their quickening, something like the Voice, but I don't need to speak out for it to work. Once," he snorted to his spell bound audience "I even managed to make it visible. That was fun."

"Make it visible? That I have to see." Amanda whistled, hoping.

"Affect others?" Joe was warier and Methos could understand why.

"I rarely used it, Joe. I prefer manipulation through words and manners. I only use it for protection."

"I see." Joe was thoughtful. Then his eyes lit up and it was obvious he had thought of something else. Methos restrained the groan that threatened to leave his throat. "Exactly what is your range? And is it affected by you squashing it down?"

"You mean how far away I can feel an Immortal?" at Joes nod, Methos thought about it carefully. "Far enough."

"Now that isn't an answer." Amanda scolded him, interested herself on the answer. She did know a bit how it worked, but she had never really tried to find out.

"Lets see." Methos said a bit annoyed. "Imagine two immortals...Amanda and I can work finely." He said to Joe who was being very attentive. "Now draw a circle centred on each of us. Each of the circles is overlapping because we are standing so near. The oldest the immortal the wider the circle. This is the feeling range. When Amanda, not her circle but her body, enters my feeling range I can sense her, but she, as my range is far wider than hers, can't feel me, for I – that is my body – is not in her circle. When I step in it she will feel me."

"But shouldn't I be able to feel just how powerful you are?" Amanda asked the only thing that bothered her about this.

"No. Because I can subdue the effect my quickening has."

"But shouldn't this tamper with your range?" Joe wondered aloud.

"It doesn't." Methos told him, not really having a better explanation for it. "It's like, I don't know, imagine a computer simulation of the bar, all of the patrons in, just like now. I can, even with closed eyes" and he did close them seeing what he was describing in his mind, "see where Amanda is. Remove the building, remove all others, the are more like shadows and smoke, and all you get is this empty area where Amanda is displayed like lightening. I know when she moves away, or when see comes closer. I can _see_ her." Methos opened his eyes and took another swallow from his beer. "Honestly that's is the only way I can describe what it is like, for me."

"And me." Amanda murmured. But she couldn't always feel what other immortals where doing, unless they were powerful.

"So, now that I understand how it is that you feel, you still have to tell how far you can feel."

"Come on Joe, this isn't some...fine, ok." He sighed, at the glare both the watcher and the immortal send him. After all, this was the reason why he hadn't reacted in Amanda's quickening, wasn't it?. "Since you think it so important. My _circle_ has a diameter of about a kilometre."

"God!" Joe said after some quick calculation. "This is..." without finishing his sentence he left trying to find a calculator, while Amanda was looking at Methos with the most peculiar look of finally being certain about something. She probably was about to ask him something when Joe's whistle turned both the immortal's heads towards them. "That is 785,000 square meters! Bigger than the city of Paris!" after this everyone sat in contemplative silence, each lost to his or hers thoughts about what this revelation meant.

"So, Methos." Amanda spoke up after ten minutes. "Where have you been? After Ariman, I mean."

"Oh, here and there. There mostly." Was the answer, well practiced and delivered before, to Joe, who now snorted. Still it wasn't able to hide a cloud that crossed Methos face. Amanda then did something strange. She leaned towards him and whispered to his ear. "Mid hire?" (_with her in old English_) 

Methos froze, just as Joe looked at them curiously.

"Ic don ne cnawan hwaet eow hneaw." He answered in the same language, his eyes a little bit wider than usual, his voice a little bit harder. "Anyway I have to go." He stood up abruptly, taking some notes from his pocket and leaving the bar without a further word. (_I don't know what you mean in Old English)_

The problem was he knew exactly what she meant.

* * *

_**1997**_

"_He is dead." He intoned quite flatly. "Why is he dead?" this time his words were delivered in a roar. This time his words were for her._

"_You asked for it." Came the calm reply._

"_I asked for it!?" outrage was obvious from his voice. And his movements. And the many broken bottles lying on the wooden floor. And glasses. One shouldn't forget about the vases either. And damn, weren't they expensive. "I asked for it?" he asked again, too stunned to believe what he was hearing. "When?"_

"_Some weeks ago. Don't you remember? You cursed him for killing your student." He was getting very annoyed with the calmness that surrounded her._

"_I did not!"_

"_Yes you did. Want me to tell you exactly what you said?"_

"_I...I didn't mean it, and you know it very well." He sighed, his legs giving away from under him. The floor was as good a place as any for him to sit anyway._

"_Of course I do." _

"_Then why in bloody hell did you choose him?" shouting again. Maybe he would have to decide what tone to use with her. Not that it affected her. _

"_Some one had to." The cold logic. He hated the cold logic behind this. He used the same logic when it suited him of course, but that was another matter._

"_He didn't. I could have. Some other could have. There are so many strong ones out there. Why MacLeod? He wasn't ready. He is not strong enough."_

"_He will be. He'll have to be if he wants to survive." _

"_But why him? Why Ritchie?"_

"_Ritchie was his student. How does the saying go? An eye for an eye?" she was smiling. She was having fun. He should hate her for it but found that he couldn't. After all, she was right. Under her logic, her laws. She was right._

"_But Mac?" he knew the answer of course. But he simply had to hear it. One more time. Always one more time._

"_He was near you. Too close perhaps. That could be a danger." Of course. A danger. To him. To her. She always looked after them, didn't she?_

"_He is a good man. He would never betray me." He tried to argue. It was hopeless he knew, but...maybe. _

"_Like he stood by you when Kronos came? Like when he told Joe, Amanda and even Ritchie who you were? Like when he threatened to kill you for fighting his battle?" that heart. As she knew it would._

"_He was right. I had no right to fight off Kean. And I told Ritchie." He stammered._

"_And he had nothing to do with it." She snorted. Of course he had. He knew it only too well "The man dares to judge you, to force you choose between people and you stay by him."_

"_That's what friends are for." He replied crisply. _

"_Of course. Until they stab you in the back for being who you are."_

"_Shut up! Just shut up! Leave me alone! It wasn't time for him to comeback anyway. Why did you have to rush things?"_

"_First you ask me to shut up, then to go away, and then to answer your questions." She sighed faking exasperation. "You should make up your mind."_

"_Just tell me why."_

"_Ahriman was getting stronger. It had to be done. You were not ready yet."_

"_I will never be." There was a hint of regret in his voice. Of unspeakable sadness and remorse._

"_No. I don't think you'll ever be." She said sadly. She walked to him, and crouched next to him, holding his head in her chest, caressing his dark hair with her fingers. "A father should never be ready to kill his son."_

* * *

"What did you tell him?" Joe asked Amada in wonder touching the money as if to see whether they were real. Methos never paid for his drink. And it was very peculiar of him to just get up and go, not even saying goodbye. 

"Oh, Joe. Haven't you noticed how preoccupied his been the past two years? Since he killed Silas in fact." Amanda told him gently.

"You know about that?" Joe asked her surprised.

"I know about a lot of things. It's only now, though that I understand them. Let's go to your office. You might want to hear this, and we don't need to be overheard."

With no resistance at all, Joe moved to follow her to his office, pausing only to take two glasses and a scotch, as well as to tell one of his waitresses to watch out for the store, while he was occupied.

The office was small, cosy, with a laptop set among hundreds of papers, notes and bills, that it was a wonder how the blues man was always able to find what he was after, a couch, where he headed, setting the glasses on the low table before it, and an armchair, already occupied by Amanda. In this place they could be sure no one would overhear what they had to discuss.

"So. I am listening." Joe said, filling up the two glasses, taking hold of one, knowing instinctively that he would need it.

"There is no easy way to start this." Amanda sighed. "So I will start the same way Rebecca did, when she told me. Do you know why Methos is a legend?"

"You mean besides that he is the oldest one?" Joe snorted.

"He is not the Oldest one." Amanda told him. "He is the Eldest."

"What do you mean?"

"His myth, being the oldest immortal didn't begin after Darius beheaded that immortal that changed him. He was always thought of being the Eldest. The first born. Since his name became widely known around 500 BC, he was always thought to be the oldest. And when you hear him talking about his quickening and what he can do with it...can't you understand Joe? It's not Duncan the chosen one. Not he that should be the one."

"You say that Methos should be the one?" Joe asked baffled. "You say that you'd prefer the power of all immortals, the ability to rule over the world, to go to Methos? But he is...he only cares for him self!"

"Joe, you know that is not true." Amanda told him gently. In fact she had rarely used such gentle tones for as long as he knew her. "Duncan, for all his good heart, and you know that I do love him, would snap under the power that would be given to him. You see what happened with the Dark Quickening. He can't handle it. Methos on the other hand, already has."

"He has taken a Dark Quickening?" Joe asked aghast. "I should have known. That explains the Horsemen."

"No. No it doesn't. He took the Dark Quickening in 1794. I should know. I was there."

"And he didn't go bad?"

"He just absorbed it. Assimilated it. Took in the power, tasted it, and buried it deep down in him. You see Joe? There can't be only one."

"He is the One." Joe finished for her, only now realising the full implication this idea held.

_fffff_

Methos, after leaving the bar, wandered aimlessly in the town. He might have chosen a walk along the Seine, but he had the feeling he needed a change of scenery. His feet slowly took him towards the Louvre and Champ Elysses. He had always liked walking this street with its tall trees on each side, and the magnificent houses. Well, ok not always. But it had become a favourite since he had read Le Comte De Monte Cristo some time around 1850. The intrigues and murders and the revenge sought after, somehow appeased him.

He brought Amanda's words in his mind. How the hell could she have known? Or maybe she didn't? But then why ask him something like this in a dead language? And why did she care anyway? He sighed softly as he looked up the sky. Surprisingly there were no clouds, only the brilliant Moon caressed his face with silver rays, the stars hidden behind the lights of the city.

But back to the important question.

How the hell did Amanda know? Not just that he had been with her, but also that she existed. Hell, he could count the persons that knew of her and were still alive in the fingers of his one hand. And Amanda wasn't among the names.

It just didn't make any sense. Unless...unless Rebecca had told her student some things.

Methos sat down heavily on the first bench he found. It was possible, he supposed that Rebecca had told her student about the city and some of his earlier years. But he had her promise him she would never reveal who he was. He was certain that she would never betray him.

He sensed Amanda long before she came into view. He could have escaped her, but for some reason he wanted her there with him. He wanted to know how she knew. He nodded at her once, as she came and sat down next to him.

"Adam."

"Amanda." They sat in silence for a while.

He looked up the sky hoping he might get a glimpse of one of the thousands stars that dwelt up there. This was probably what he hated the most in this new era. These several past hundred years since mortals begun lighting the streets so much. There had always been stars up there to protect him. Like an eternal blanket of light and hope in the darkness of night. No night, not darkness, was with out any light, any hope. That was the stars for him. Always there to remind him that he would never outlive them.

"How did you know?" he asked speaking in Amanda's old language. First language.

"Rebecca told me." Her warm hand took hold of one of his own, inside the space of his coat pocket. He smiled gently as she caressed him. For all her faults – and he didn't think they were many – Amanda was a fine woman and even better an immortal. It would be pity if she was lost. But, then again she had survived a thousand years. And wasn't stupid enough to sell herself for the life of one mortal.

"She had promised never to tell any of you, who I am." Amanda was surprised to discern a bit of anger in his voice. So he didn't know all.

"She never told me that_ you_ were the Gatherer. She just told me the tale of the Gatherer. How did she name you?" Amanda paused for a moment tasting the different word. "Hades. One of the 12 Gods of Ancient Greece."

"She told you what it means?" asked Methos remembering rather fondly the name everyone had known him by while in the _City._

"The Gatherer. I thought that was obvious."

"The Gatherer of the souls of the dead, Amanda." He watched her as she blanched a bit. "What? I usually found them after they had died, for the first time."

"And they called you that?"

"Why do you suppose I was Death while in the Horsemen?" he sighed. "Death, Thanatos, was the man who led the souls to Hades."

He never liked talking about those years. He did remember them fondly, his first 3000 thousand years – that he remembered of – but he didn't like talking of them with others. They rarely understood. They were so young. Arhon had. Or better he never judged him, just accepted all he did. Then again Arhon thought the Sun and the Moon of him. Darius had understood. Had been through almost the same thing. But he only realised the guilt and the pleasure of thinking of those years. The lure of the power.

Methos, on the other hand, had never felt guilty of committing all those things. Never ignored the lure of the power. But he had come to realise that power over the others was nothing over the power he had. The power that he was. And guilt, well, Rebecca had helped him rid of it. It wasn't even caused by those he killed, but of what he forced his brothers to become. The price he had to pay to remember to love and care again.

"Yes. There is that." Amanda agreed unaware of his thoughts.

"What else did she tell you?"

"That the Gatherer created a city out of nothing..."

"What? I didn't!" he exclaimed in wonder.

"She also said that you never believed it." Amanda agreed. She was always in awe when she thought of the story. That she now knew who Methos was, well, it kind of made her believe the story even more. "She told me that you also destroyed it..."

"Hidden it. Hidden is the important word."

"And that you created the Game." Methos sprang on his feet thunderstruck.

"SHE WHAT?" for the first time in her long life, Amanda became very frightened of the man in front of her. He stood tall, menacing, his eyes burning like a fire, gold. His fists were clenching and it seemed that he yearned for a sword, or a blade, anything pointed would do. Especially if it was inside her.

"Adam, dear?" she asked gently. "Let me finish." She took hold of his hand and pulled him gently to sit down. He did after a few moments, his eyes never leaving her, never becoming gentler. He looked like the ancient that he was. "She said it was unavoidable. That to hide TahDjeser you revealed how an immortal could die. The word spread, among the mortals, until some of us learned of it. But heard the story differently than those that saw the first Challenge. They liked the idea of the gathering power. The idea that in the end there would be only one, the most powerful of all. But they got it wrong didn't they?"

"There never will be only one. Those that die are reborn. We just store their quickenings until the suitable host is found. Then, without our knowledge, they leap to that host. And they get re-born. Killing the host. We all of us kill our mothers." He said flatly. For a moment Amanda was stunned. She had never expected him to tell her something as important as this. A few bits, yes. But this couldn't be something well known.

"Why are you telling me this." She asked, her voice a whisper.

"What do you mean? You asked." He replied amused, his eyes finally loosing some of his power, his stance, once more the relaxed, the familiar one of Methos. But he hadn't been Methos in the beginning.

"You are going to kill me, right?" the idea flashed in her mind unexpected. She froze the moment she heard her own words.

"I could." He agreed, "but the Highlander would never forgive me. Not to mention Joe."

"So, what are you going to do?"

"I have several options. I could make you forget, make you swear that you'll never tell..."

"I won't."

"...or, I could tell you all." He paused, once more looking his age, deadly serious as he took her hand on his. "Rebecca trusted you the most, among her students. Otherwise she wouldn't have told you all that much. And I've known you for a thousand years. Amanda do you want to be my student?"

"Yes." No hesitation, no fear. Only awe. Methos smiled.

"Good." He got up, pulling her with him. "Let's go someplace more dry. And warmer."

* * *

_Some explanations are coming; otherwise the story would make no sense. Tell me what you think._


	10. Chapter 8b

_**Disclaimer: **something strange happened the other night. I found an envelope with the ownership of the Immortals written on my name. So I suppose I own them. So long as pigs can fly. Darn. Anyone studying genetics might care to lend a hand here?_

_This is the second part of the chapter. It's big enough to compensate for the long waiting, I hope. _

_**The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.**_

_**And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;**_

_**And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.**_

_**And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;**_

_**And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.**_

_**And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.**_

_Revelation 8:07-8:12_

His place was comfortable. But then again he was 5000 years old. He would know comfortable. And impersonal, Amanda noted. There were books, old books, new books, journals, his or others and there were music CD's. Hundreds of them. Amanda felt her head spinning as she tried to go through the titles.

"Opera? I thought you hate opera." She asked, holding a CD out.

"As much as I hate water." He agreed smiling. "But that's not opera. That's a play. Musical. Phantom of the Opera?"

"Oh, yes. I didn't see..." Amanda mumbled as she put the CD back. "Hey, you don't hate water. Remember that cruise we had in the Aegean Sea fifty years ago? You were the skipper."

"I know. Mac, though, doesn't." Methos smiled very pleased with himself. "In fact most people who know of _Methos _or just know _Methos_, believe that he is afraid of the water. It is lovely when you have a place to go, no one will think you will want to go." Amanda nodded in agreement. It made sense. "After all, in 5000 years, one has the chance to face his fears, loose them and create new ones."

"Tell me about it." She might have lived only a thousand years, but she did know something about fear. "So..."

"So?"

"Adam! I do suppose you brought me here for a reason."

"So I have." Methos said going to the Kitchen and coming back with two cans of coke. Amanda raised an eyebrow. "Hey, I don't want you to go all dizzy on me." He told her. "And yes I do drink other stuff other that alcohol, I'll have you know."

"I did know." Amanda smiled. "It's just that you usually don't drink much else."

"Habit." He shrugged.

Yes, Amanda could understand that. He had lived during eras where water went bad very quickly. Eras when it was safer to drink alcohol rather than water. She had had to do it her self in the early years. In fact she had started drinking more and more water in the last 60 or seventy years, when mortals had finally realised that clean water diminished the chances of getting sick. She might be immortal, but she didn't enjoy getting poisoned because she was thirsty.

"Well, it seems Rebecca told you many of what I would have to tell you." He sat down sipping from his coke. "Better get it from the start though. TahDjeser was built by two very powerful immortals. Ea and Ereshkigal." Methos closed his eyes remembering the story as he had first heard it from Arhon, as he always told it to his students. "They, then, became Babylonian Gods, but for a while they were our Gods as well. As long as TahDjeser was remembered."

"So you believe in them?" Amanda said a bit unsure. Rebecca had told her...

"Yes. No. Do you believe in Gods, Amanda? After all this time? I know that there is something out there far greater than us, but if that is a God, or Gods, Her or He, just plain luck or chance, or energy or anything, I don't know and honestly I don't care." He told her. "What I've learned all these years, having been a god, is that the true power comes from within. From our belief in something. I believe in that, Amanda. I believe in people."

"I would have thought that after all these years people would be the last you believed in." Amanda commented, quite surprised by his views.

"Oh" he smirked "I believe in them because they are constant in their stupidity, Amanda." Ok that was her Methos. Cynic as always. "Anyway. Back to our story. TahDjeser, came out of the waves as an island in about 3000, plus or minus some decades. Plus probably."

"You don't know?"

"Amanda, how many times have the ways of calculating dates changed? No I don't know. I have no idea. Every time I do my calculations the date changes. Hell, my age changes. I just know that it was created some three decades before I kind of stumbled across it."

"Stumble?"

"Yes. I had never heard of it, I think. You have to understand that these are the years I don't really remember a lot about. I remember having a wife in Crete, maybe. I remember of travelling to Thera after her death, but I don't remember what my name or my wife's was then, or how she looked like. I don't remember what I did for living or how long I stayed there. I don't remember whether I was immortal by then or not.

"I do know that I was an immortal when Arhon found me. Thera was then pretty much uninhabited. It was another fifty years before the first serious settlers came upon the island. Beautiful towns, those. But TahDjeser was special. A jewel to my eyes at least." He smiled in memory, as he saw himself walking in the corridors, chasing the children around, talking to all those friends...he shuddered the moment the image of the abandoned city flashed through his mind and he opened his eyes. "Arhon told me this story. You know why the city was built?"

"Rebecca said to protect us from mortals." Amanda was watching him, trying to understand if there was something more he knew behind what he told her.

"Yes. To protect us. But no one knew where the city was built. No one knew there was a city. All of us we could feel it, but they didn't understand what it was they were feeling."

"You did." She aid with dawning understanding. "That's why you found it. That's why Arhon told you to go out and get the rest of the immortals."

"Mmm, yes. Not something I enjoyed that much, let me tell you. In the beginning it seemed that by doing this I wasn't living my life. But slowly I realised that there was no reason I couldn't settle down from now to then, have a family of my own, and resume searching or staying in the city the years between my lives. It's not as if I went someplace just to settle down any way. I travelled a lot those years. Learned many different languages. It was hard years but not any harder than now. Just different.

"I made one mistake, all those years. One mistake that proved fatal."

"You told Irad." Amanda guessed, but Methos shook his head

"No. I believed that we, immortals, were better. Above mortals. I believed that we were blessed by the Gods not to have petty wants. I thought we could live in harmony. It didn't have to be Irad the man I shouldn't have told. It could have been anyone. But Irad it was. And he was enthralled by the power that the city offered. He thought that if he ruled us, if he got to have an immortal army, he would be unstoppable.

"But TahDjeser was not about that. There were immortals that had come with their families, there. There was a mortal community that knew of us..."

"The Watchers?" Amanda exclaimed.

"Well, they weren't called as such then, but they did make my life easier. Usually they were friends or children the immortals had raised and who as they grew up helped us spreading the word of the existence of the city. You see, we didn't go there to stay for ever. We came and went and soon it wasn't just me that told of the city. It's just that the name stuck with me."

"So no one ruled the city?"

"Arhon did." Methos told her. "It seems that he was there when the Ancients built it. He thought, or maybe he was indeed told to, guard the city. Kind of being the spiritual, wise man all could find solace in. He was 2000 years old when I found him. Or he me. You know, he was 5000 years old when he died. Or somewhere near."

"Did you know Darius?" Amanda asked suddenly. She always wondered if Methos had known the killer of his first Teacher? Immortal friend? Who knew what Arhon had been to the Old Man.

"Yes. He was a stubborn son of a bitch." Methos smiled fondly at the memory of the great General and then Priest.

"And you don't mind that he killed Arhon?" she wondered. Methos leaned back in his chair and looked at her very seriously for some moments. His face seemed shadowy despite the light in the room, and Amanda couldn't help wondering, who she was seeing at the moment. She doubted anyone had ever seen _him._ The real _him_ for a very long time.

"I was...gratified, relieved."

"What? Why?" Amanda exclaimed, spiting some of her coke she had unwisely chosen that moment to drink.

"How old is the oldest immortal you know of, Amanda?" Methos asked her calmly. Her eyes clouded in thought as she tried not to understand.

"You are the eldest."

"I am 5000 years old. Almost. Arhon was 5000 when he died. I can tell you of thousands others that were 5000 years old when they died. Plus or minus one hundred years."

"But you are the Eldest." Amanda argued.

"Look, Amanda. I know what Arhon believed." Methos told her a bit irritated. "What Rebecca probably told you about _Methos._ About the _Gatherer._ Well, it's not true. I am not Ea. I am not the immortal that had lived for ever without ever dying and who created the mankind. Those are myths. I am real. And I am not Ea. You think I wouldn't know if I wasn't a God? Arhon liked to believe it because I resembled him – or at least that is what he told me. I mean, honestly! What God can possibly forget about being a God?"

"And what about her? What about your silent and invisible and ever there companion?" Amanda challenged him. He just narrowed his eyes.

"I have no idea how you know of her, but she is not Ereshkigal, if that is what you think. She came to me after a bad Quickening. I told you that those of us we kill eventually move on to another host to be reborn. Why do you think we get so little of the Quickenings? They are not ours to dig into. She just refused to go on. She preferred to stay behind as a revenge, I don't know. She might have had the ability to do that."

"So you say that you are just..."

"Me. A 5000 thousand year old plain immortal." He smiled as in apology.

"But what about what you can do with your quickening. And what happens when you get 5000 years old?"

"I can do what I do with my Quickening because I can. I can't explain it any more I can explain Cassandra's voice. As for what happens to those older that 5000? They die."

"Impossible." She breathed. "You can't...you are not d...de...dead!"

"I don't know exactly how old I am, either. Probably a bit less than 5000 years old. I am immortal, Amanda. Not Eternal. We can live for ages, but nature forces us to stop at some point. We are immortals, not Gods."

"So, what, you just wither and die?" Amanda asked, trying to find something, a clue that it was not true. That her friend, her constant for all those thousand years wasn't going to die soon. He couldn't. He was Methos.

"I...I don't know. Every one I knew that was 5000, well, ceased to exist. Of course now days no immortal ever reaches the 5000 years barrier."

"You mean the Game?" Amanda stated more than asked. "But...if what you say is true, about the city, then the Game couldn't have existed then."

"I did say nowadays, no? Hell, immortals didn't even know how to kill each other, then. But I always did." Methos raised himself of the seat and walked around his apartment. "Rebecca probably never told you of this. There _is_ a community of immortals. Immortals that know of all of this. They are 144 always, since we formed. You belong to them now. After Rebecca's death. She wanted you to take her place when she died. She was nearing 4000 years after all. I just never thought I would be the one to include you." He smiled at the irony. He was a good 1000 years older than Rebecca. He should be the first to die.

"Community? And what to they, we do?" Amanda asked interested in the idea.

"_Our cause is a secret within a secret, a secret that only another secret can explain; it is a secret about a secret that is veiled by a secret." _Methos quoted, a somewhat dreaming look set on his eyes.

"Because that just made everything so clear." Amanda huffed causing Methos to laugh heartily.

"Well, what do you thing immortality is? Secrets within secrets based on a single truth far lost in the mists of times. No one knows, no one remembers. De toute facon, we police our kind. We find pre-immortals and get them to safety. Cases like Kenny we try to avoid, but..." they didn't always succeed. "We keep us safe, from mortals. Keep an eye on watchers as well. But most importantly we make sure that the Old Ones go away quietly."

"You mean you kill them?" Amanda's eyes were wide open, disbelieving, denying what she was hearing.

"We lead them to the place they die." He rolled his eyes. Young immortals always believed that anything that had to do with immortals involved murder. "Remember Darius. He shouldn't have killed Arhon, he was too young. It was my fault, as it is. The power an immortal has gathered in 5000 years of life is huge. It destroys part of the young immortal who takes it. It alters his quickening as it tries to use the young immortal to remain alive. Don't think for a moment that an immortal as old as 5000 years might not want to live one more day. One more year. I know I do."

"You did offer your head your head to Duncan though." Amanda pointed out.

"Was there any chance, then, that he would have knowingly killed Methos, the oldest of the immortals, without first having getting any answers at least? It was safe play." He smiled as he saw her rolling her eyes.

"Reasonable." She mused. "But what about the power increasing with as many heads one takes?"

"Myths." He shook his hand disregarding the question. "I am more powerful than you, you are more powerful than Duncan, he was more powerful than Ritchie. It's all about age. But when a young one kills an immortal far older than himself...the think is, we are not as lucky as to have a result such as with Darius. Usually what happens is..."

"A Dark Quickening!"

"You see? I knew you were up to this. Yes. A Dark Quickening."

"That's why you don't get affected by them, they are all so far younger. But...but what about Duncan? Or Kronos. He was old while Koltec wasn't that much. And how did you get him out of it?"

"Duncan for all his good heart is more of a fool than it is safe." Methos snorted. "Why do you think I lead Silas in the same room? Duncan was already affected by Caspian's quickening, it had already begin to change him, but when he took Kronos' head, lets just say that my brothers didn't need lot of persuasion to hop of to join me. And with the power Silas gave me – he rather grounded me – I was able to take them all in."

"The double quickening." Amanda whispered. "The connection. Duncan always thought that for a moment he was joined with you. He still thinks that there is a link between you two."

"Well, he did get to see images from the common past of the four of us, but I didn't instigate that. Or maybe I did." Methos smiled his self satisfactory smile on a job well done. "He was so preoccupied with them that he was never the wiser. He tasted the power but I didn't let him keep it. Too dangerous after what had already happen with the Dark Quickening."

"So, what? They had left you now? Jumped into other hosts? Are we getting a new set of the horsemen in the near future?"

"How the hell should I know? They were all quite old. All of them nearing the 4000 mark. Silas was even older. They didn't have much time before they would die from old age anyway. They didn't give their life force where they were supposed to. I am not sure what will happen. They can't affect me, I suppose, but asides that? Well, I don't know everything!"

"So what about his dark quickening?" Amanda asked her next question when she had assimilated all this. Truth to be told what Methos was telling her was raising more questions than he was answering. It was confusing and circling and had to do with age. That much she understood. She hoped.

"Dark Quickenings have the tendency to jump from one immortal to the other. Mainly when a beheading gets in the way. But it looses power after it has jumped some times. Mac was lucky to get one after it had weakened enough. And, anyway, who says I helped him out of it?"

"Sacred underground lake? The MacLeod Sword? Ring a bell?"

"It always amazed me the power one has when one believes in something." Methos smiled.

"You mean that because you manipulated him into thinking that he would be healed in there he was healed?" Amanda said incredulously. She did know that a down to earth conversation with _Methos_ would be mind-boggling but this was too much.

"Yes."

"And why that lake? Was it just a place eerie enough you knew that it would do?"

"It is the place many old immortals have passed on. It is the place I will most likely be when I..." he coughed to hide the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. "Yes, well. Now you know most of it. I think it's enough for today, eh?"

"Yes." Amanda agreed, thinking that it was probably easier for her to take in, rather than him to say. "One question and then I'm out of here." She said and he nodded in agreement. "How did the city fell?"

_As it was expected Kronos had tried to persuade the other Immortals to fight. As it also was expected, he failed. So it was with a heavy heart when slowly the city begun empting, led to the outside, mortal, world by doors and passages that only two men in the city knew of. In four days there was not a soul left but the first two inhabitants of the immortal city._

"_He is moving fast." Arhon observed from the walls._

"_Yes, arrogant that his is." Hades replied just as another trap was set off. He knew the city was doomed, but they had to make them think that there was some resistance from their part. Not just an empty city waiting her doom. It would be a disaster if those people turned back and sought for the immortals in the island. Too soon they would realise that there were many unknown faces among the islanders, all trying to abandon the island. Running from their fate. _

"_How many do you think he has lost." Arhon said, his eyes sad, shedding one more tear for the men that fell._

"_A lot for him to think it might be time he stopped his advance." The other immortal replied dryly. As if Irad had heard him, only a few moments later the marching army came to a halt. They were too close now. "It's time you left, my friend." Gently he motioned Arhon down the walls and to the agora. _

"_Yes, I believe it is." The old man said, strangely looking first at the sky and then at the mountain hovering above them. "I can't stop wondering though, when you think it will be time for you to leave."_

_Hades smiled, not for a moment thinking that he might out fox the old man. He might have a cunning mind, but Arhon always seemed a step ahead. _

"_I have some scores to settle down before I go."_

"_You do understand that you don't have to do it." Arhon looked at him worried. It was never a good idea to play with fate._

"_I know. But the city must go under." Hades replied and for a moment Arhon thought he saw something more in the man. Someone else. Then that light in the younger man's eyes disappeared, only the echo of past power lingering in the air. "And I don't have the power to do it."_

"_You needn't destroy the city."_

"_I won't. TahDjeser will always be here but hidden. Safe from megalomaniacs such as..." he paused as the buzz of an immortal, wrong, of many immortals assaulted him. Arhon smiled. "They are not gone."_

"_Of course not. Well, not all of them. They, I, we will do as you ask, but we won't let you do it alone. There is an army of thousand men out there. It's stupid to face them alone."_

"_I wouldn't." Hades protested. _

"_You know what I mean." Arhon said exasperated. "You need a safety blanket. Those..." and he showed him the 144 immortals that had agreed to stay behind, women and men, old and younger. "are here to help you. Don't turn them down."_

"_I won't. Wouldn't. But what I have in mind...they are not safe. They must not see." He protested._

"_You can't be serious that we would leave you alone." Riv.Ka told him as she approached from the group. "You need a leverage to get him to fight you one to one."_

"_How did you..."_

"_Arhon told us." She replied with a smile, just as he stared daggers to Arhon. _

"_And how would he have known?" he asked seemingly generally, but his eyes never left Arhons._

"_You speak a lot in your sleep?"_

"_Darn." Hades sighed at the view off all these immortals, all these friends of his – even though some he really couldn't stand – smiled, not exactly certain of what would happen. Even he didn't know. "Very well. Scatter around the walls of the city overlooking the arena. Get some bows and try to look fearsome and, well, immortal." He told them as a plan had already begun to form in his mind. His immortals all laughed at this went looking for weapons. Soon it was only him and RivKa._

"_What are you going to do?" she asked him, clearly worried, but knowing better than to try to stop him._

"_Probably something incredibly stupid." He said with a half smile. "Riv.Ka, promise me that what ever happens you will live."_

"_Danel, you will be with me..." she raised her hand to caress his smooth face but he didn't let her._

"_Dear, don't. Don't hope for what might never be. I don't know what will happen. It's been a thousand years since I used magic. Real magic, RivKa. I am not sure I can make it work, my plan."_

"_Magic? But...that is..."_

"_Something taught." He filled her in, knowing very well that her people were against magic, as a representation of the dark gods. "The moment I engage Irad in fight, you must all leave. You understand? Promise me you'll tell the rest and that you'll do what I ask you. I can't hide TahDjeser with you in."_

"_I understand." She told him, tears in her eye. "I promise." He leaned in and kissed her eyes. _

"_Thank you. Go now. I have a King to meet."_

_RivKa watched him as he walked away from her, going presumably to his own quarters to get ready. "I'll find you again." She whispered in the still air as she too turned to go and get all she needed, as well as tell the rest of his orders. They wouldn't like it, but they would do it. _

_fffff_

_Hades had walked half the distance to Irad's camp when the patrol saw him. Some fell to their knees, thinking that what they saw was a God, so silently and suddenly had he appeared before them. Others run to the camp to let their King know that there was someone there. Hades just stood there, waiting, dauntless of the soldiers that were slowly coming near him, their weapons in clear view. His clothes – those that he had worn when had been taught and practiced all kinds of magic – were constitute of a simple white linen, its hem dyed blue, tied around his waist and reached his ankles – like Egyptian Priests did – and the skin of a great tiger cast over his left shoulder and tied in his waist to keep it from falling. He was wearing ritualistic silver bracelets in both his wrists and a silver snake like band on his arm. His sword was hanging from a leather string around his back. _

_He stayed very still – yet looking totally indifferent to the gathering numbers of the armed mortals around him. He only wanted one man. And he could feel him coming._

_Irad, dressed finely as a King ought to, with golden jewellery and the best quality leather to protect him in a fight, walked among his soldiers to meet him who the mortals thought a God and he knew was another of his kind. He had never thought though that the man he would come upon was the immortal that he had captured and tortured for the past year. _

_Irad had been furious when his slave had escaped – the carcases of his guards still hanging at a beach on the island was more than enough proof of it. He had thought him to be weak, exhausted. The man had had almost nothing to eat or drink for all these months and his quickening hadn't been able to repair all the wounds inflicted upon him the last few months. Irad had been amazed at his inner strength, though at a moment it had seemed that the man was close to madness. He had experimented on the immortal, testing the limits of their species endurance. He had thought he had gone too far; he had thought that the other immortal would never heal properly, and yet here he was standing, clearly dressed in colours of death, impressive like a mighty King. _

"_I thought you would be in some hell-hole licking your wounds now." Irad said calmly. He wasn't afraid of the man. He was just one of his kind, one that he had played with for a very long time. For Irad the man was nothing._

"_I have a message for you." Hades intoned in a flat, cold voice that commanded respect. _

"_Oh? Let's hear it." Irad smiled. The man valued nothing for the town either. If he did they wouldn't have send him in the middle of the enemy camp. Not a few hours before the attack anyway. So he had a message. Irad wasn't one of those who allowed the messenger to go free. Irad used to make a message of the messenger._

"_The People of TahDjeser wish not to fight you. But they refuse to give their city to you without a fight." _

"_That's very brave of them." Irad said sarcastically as the men around him laughed. The city had fallen already and they knew they were the victors._

"_They will accept you as their King only if you defeat their champion." Hades said not paying attention to the snickers and insults thrown around him. After all, he knew something they didn't. _

"_Why should I fight someone when the city is already mine?" Irad laughed at the incredulous request. _

"_They will fight against you, then. Till they are exhausted or so injured they can't get up." Hades shrugged. "How many do you think we might kill before you manage to drive us out? A thousand men? Two thousand?" the soldiers' faces blanched at his words. "Is it worth it? A one to one fight for a quick painless resolve or a fight that might last days and you might not win and suffer great looses in the process. We are a good one thousand and we are very hard to kill. You have until dawn to think about it. Unless of course you are afraid that you will loose in a one to one combat." _

_Irad knew that this was manipulation. He knew he shouldn't respond to the challenge, to the insult, but he was known all over the world for his fighting abilities. Never had anyone beat him since he could remember. There was no chance their challenger would defeat him. And, to be honest, he wanted the immortals alive and well and in his side. How else he was going to create his divine army? Mortals, he didn't particularly care about them, but at the moment he needed them to give him leverage over the immortals. He had no way of knowing that the city was almost empty. He had no way of knowing he was walking straight into a trap, out of which he wouldn't be allowed to come out alive._

_Hades walked away free. Uninjured. Having got the answer he desired. In three hours the city would cease to exist, no matter the result of the fight._

_ffffff_

_Irad walked into the city unable to hide his awe at the beauty around him. There was not one building looking the same as the ones next to it, and yet all these different styles – many of which he couldn't recognise where they originated from – the different colours, bonded together in what seemed a true immortal city, reflecting all the knowledge, all the cultures it's people came from. _

_It was a young – seemingly – woman, dressed in a long blue dress – the colour that somehow prevailed in the city as well – that led them through the main road to where the challenger would be. His soldiers – the best unit he had, consisted of five hundred men – followed behind him, looking for any dangers amidst the city that looked abandoned, but within which Irad could feel many of his kind. The buzz of hundreds of immortals was so strong that he believed the claim his captured immortal had made earlier. A thousand immortals. Ready to bow to him the moment he defeated his opponent. _

_Irad was not stupid. He knew there had to be a catch. He jus couldn't see it._

_The road led to an open rectangular area of where once might have been the agora or a square of some sort. It was surrounded by what seemed to be the biggest buildings of the town. Maybe the temples –if indeed his kind believed in any Gods. Upon the roofs the 144 waited. All dressed in colours that for their civilisation meant war. Irad and his men had no way of knowing this, though. The court was rectangular, of about 50 and 75 metres its two axis, the ground paved with colourful stones forming geometric patterns or scenes from the nature. Quickly his men entered to surround the court, closing all the exits, as he had told them they were to do. In the middle of the court, sitting on the ground, calmly, just a sword in his lap, his opponent was waiting, his back turned to him. _

"_This is too weird." His lieutenant whispered to him from behind. He was the only man that stayed with him, all of them following the rules of a challenge to the letter. _

"_I have to admit you are right." Irad agreed. "But then again this is a strange people."_

"_I don't understand why you want to rule them. Look at them." He pointed to the immortals – armed and motionless watching from their positions. "here is an army of great numbers whiting their city and how many come out to protect it? They can't be more than 200. Gods, there are even women among them. Who can be so stupid to allow women to fight? They must be desperate."_

"_You remember Mot (annihilator in Sumerian, Hades). No matter what we did, he healed. He couldn't die." Omri, the lieutenant, nodded. He had found it unnerving that there was a man – so clearly human – but also touched by the Gods or the Demons, that walked among them without any of them bring the wiser for so long. "They are all like him." His king said. "I am like them. Imagine, Omri. Imagine what would happen if I would rule all these people. What would happen if we joined forces. A unit of undying men. Clearly our Lord Marduk was preparing me all this time for exactly this moment. We will rule the world, Omri."_

_Omri watched his king as he spoke. The passion, the will in his voice had captured him as it always had. Once more he remembered why he didn't mind his brother was the ruler, instead of him. Once more he remembered the vision his brother had. The task that the Gods had given him to fulfil. In his heart he knew that the day had come for his brother to fulfil the will of the Gods. He smiled at the thought that he was blessed to be next to a man that very nearly was a god, and consider him brother. His brother, his King was right. They would rule the world for it was given to them._

"_Maybe one should alert their challenger that we are waiting." Irad spoke from next to him. "He seem to be sleeping, I think." There was sarcasm in his voice and Omri couldn't quite hide a smile. They must have been in the court for five minutes now and yet none of the immortals had moved. The challenger didn't even acknowledged them._

_Omri walked towards the seated man, till his shadow fell upon the immortal. Only then did the immortal stand up and spoke at him, still not looking at him._

"_The deal was I fight with your King, not you. Run back to your fellow mortals, Omri. You don't belong here."_

"_How do you know my name?" Omri demanded stunned for a minute. "Who are you?"_

"_Depends on who you ask, really. Some think I am Hades, some call me Se Ankh Neter Im but that is too long a name to use every day. You met me as Mot, but it is no more my really name as the rest of them is." _

_Omri looked stunned as the man, the challenger turned to look at him. His face, half died blue the other half white in the way a long forgotten people used to prepare their dead, looked so familiar and yet completely different than the one he had seen, learned when the man had been a prisoner. When he had seen his as a messenger. _

"_You? You are the challenger?" he said stunned. "My king had you bowing to his feet for a whole year. Had you writhing in pain at his feet, doing all that it pleased him to do. How can you think you can defeat him?_

"_I haven't met one that could." Hades replied calmly, allowing the words of the other roll off him. It wasn't the moment to wander back to those particular memories. He had made a mistake, one that he would rectify now. "Run back to your fellow mortals, Omri. This isn't a place for you."_

"_Those are your only men, right?" Omri smiled as realisation hit him for the reason behind this entire charade. "There are only what? Two hundred of you? Against 5 thousand? You don't stand a chance. Irad will have you all bowing at him by the end of the day. You are doomed."_

"_I did warn you." Hades whispered before he crouched down to the ground again. Before Omri could register what was happening a 144 arrows shot from around the roofs all of them finding their target. Omri fell to the ground silently. Dead long before he hit it. "One down. Some hundreds more to go." Hades smirked as he raised to look straight at the King who looked disbelieving to the body of his lieutenant. The man he had grown up together. _

_Just as the soldiers around him begun moving, closing their way towards the lone immortal in the middle, arrows flew from the sky, other hitting the mortals, other felling just next to them, in a wordless threat. They backed off, remaining motionless seeing that none of the arrows had even come near to their king. The immortals still whished the challenge to take place._

"_You killed my brother!" Irad shouted as he neared the immortal and the body. "Your messenger said that this would be a challenge between you and me. You lied!"_

"_I didn't. Consider this a payback of your treatment. The cold, composed voice had Irad hold in his advanced. He lloked at the man some meters away from him. He was his prisoner. The messenger from before, having discard the leopard skin, holding his sword, ready for battle. "And I did give him the chance to go away."_

"_He didn't even threaten you." Irad felt more confident than he had all day. He could defeat that man. He had him as his slave for so long. _

"_that didn't matter to you when I first met you. Why should it matter to me?"_

"_Did I hurt you so badly that you went mad? You think you can defeat me?"_

"_Are you so arrogant that you can't see the truth before your eyes? You are already dead."_

"_I am immortal. I cannot die." _

_Irad cried and charged, his own sword looking for a chance to run his opponent through. The swords clanged, the force behind the each movement such that their hands trembled when they came apart. Very soon all around them was forgotten as their attention was wholly given to their opponent. Each studying the other, each trying to guess what the next movement will be. How to parry the next strike to create an opening. _

_The voices around them faded in the background as the only thing they could her was the noise of metal hitting metal, of heavy breathing. The moment came when the world narrowed down to them both, to their breath as they came out ragged, their sweat that they could here dripping down their foreheads. The silence that was the noise around them. _

_Unnoticed by them, unnoticed by the mortals, the 144 gathered in the eastern side of the court, up on one of the roofs, from where they could leave the town as instructed. Yet all hesitated. All didn't dare to force them selves to take their eyes from this man that had some so much for all of them. They had all been found by him. All they had been taught be the strange man, even when they didn't realise it. Even when he himself he hadn't realised he had taught them. For all he had been a part of their lives. Lives they didn't want to leave behind. _

_They stood enthralled as the sword dance picked up pace bellow in the court. They all knew that Irad stood no chance. The grace with which the Gather moved was uncanny, unique. They knew that the challenge would be over soon. Their task was over. And yet they lingered. _

_It was the cry that shook them off the trance they seemed to have fallen. The cry that could not be human or of this world, as the man they knew so well impaled his opponent with a movement so swift they weren't even sure they had seen. The mortals stood too stunned to think what to do next. In the eerie silence that followed the ragged breaths of the two men that had been fighting, sounded like thunders. _

"_I lied." Hades said looking into the brown eyes of the fallen King. Irad looked up at him, blood coming out of his mouth, pain and fear for the first time written on his face. The fear that he was dead. "Immortals can die." Hades grasped Irad from the neck as he removed his sword from the other mans belly. Irad was too weak to fight, even as his Quickening begun healing his wound. "And you die today."_

_The movement was elegant and effortless, as all upon him seemed. The sword was raised and then sliced through the air to find its mark and easily cut through flesh and bone as Hades stroke the other mans head. The noise it made as it fell to the ground, followed by the lifeless body was deafening. Without a doubt all knew that the immortal was dead. _

"_My friend." From the top of the roofs the immortals looked stunned in fear as the scene was played. They all had known, all had been told when they decided to stay behind, but only Arhon had seen it before. Only he was as old to remember other times. But this was wrong. Very wrong. Irad had been a young immortal. And young immortals were never supposed to die like this. It simply wasn't their time._

_His whisper, carrying the despair and fear that he felt in his heart reached Hades however weak it had been. As the airs stilled and charged with energy he turned towards his friends to see that they hadn't done as he had asked of them._

"_Run!" the command came only a few moments too soon as the immortals realised they were still there, and one by one turned to leave, obeying an order that should have been given twice. Behind them all hell broke loose._

_The Immortal known as the Gatherer stood in the middle of the arena, the mortals too stunned and afraid to even contemplate on leaving, as the quickening from Irad begun leaking from his body. Hades felt the air charging as clouds gathered above them. He felt the power assimilating and left himself operate on instinct. He didn't know how he knew what was going to happen, and he didn't know how he was supposed to do what the had been told to do – or thought to do, his mind hadn't decided yet on what was true – but he knew he could and would do it. _

_He saw the energy of the fallen immortal calling his own, trying to enter him, to posses him, but instead he used it. Their Gods had warned them, no blood was to be spilt in TahDjeser. No blood had been spilled until now. The ancient magic woven in the island awoke and he called on it, enhanced it with the thunder and lightening that was Irad, manipulated using his own will to do his biding. _

_The Volcano woke up. The whole island shook as TahDjeser slowly started her descent beneath the waves, Rocks and magma exploding into the sky, turning the day into the darkest of nights. The mortals, those that were able to use their terror rather than surrender to it run as fast as they could, climbing to escape the descending city, trying to keep their footing as the earth moved violently beneath them, angry for the betrayal. _

_Few managed to escape from the outer city and the camps. Even less where left with their life of those that had witness their battle. The mountain that once inhabited TahDjeser sunk slowly, the city in some strange – magical some would say – safe under a dome of cooling magma that hit on the energy encircling the city. It took only minutes for the mountain to disappear, only the surrounding land remaining, cliffs vertically cut, clouds of smoke of the hot material emerging from the middle of the island that now was sea, and later would be called the caldera. _

_It wasn't the first quickening to happen, it wasn't even the first quickening that Hades had received, but it was the first one to be seen by people that would remember but would not understand. It was the beginning of the Game. _

_fffff_

Second part of the chapter. Hoped you liked it.

"_Our cause is a secret within a secret, a secret that only another secret can explain; it is a secret about a secret that is veiled by a secret" by _Ja'far as-Sadiq, from the sixth man. Unless I completely mis-spelled the man's name.

In case I didn't make it clear. Immortals did hunt down other immortals, mostly to control them, to remain hidden from the mortals, but it never a Game. Mainly a punishment, saved for those that wouldn't reform otherwise. They would always be in secret, and only that community of 144 would know how it would happen. Of course the 144 that stayed back, couldn't all have been members of the community. Some where too young (Rebecca) some just didn't do for it. But the Gatherer was a member and those that were of the organisation in the city the time of all this, like Arhon, might have thought it would be symbolic, it would give him power and protection if there were 144 as always when all of them were gathered. Obviously the rest would be out there in the world, making sure, if not always succeeding, to keep things calm. As for the Horsemen...well there is this thing called Dark Ages. And honestly, as long as people mortals didn't know better – the horsemen were 2000 years at least after the mortals thought to hunt down the immortals, so how could they remember? – who would willingly go after the Gatherer and the most violent and successful band in the History.

Some historical notes. I have no idea how it looks like when an explosion like the one in Thera occurs, so don't take my word for it. It certainly would be terrifying enough to be remembered as an apocalyptic event. The whole island moving, the earth feeling burning hot underneath your feet, poisonous gases feeling the air, diminishing the visibility, burning the throat and the eyes. I can't possibly imagine what those people went through when this happened. I don't even want to know. Imagine seeing a whole chunk of your island, your home sinking.

Also, Crete or Keftiu as it was known then, was inhabited even long before 3000BC the archaeologists claim. Though I don' know if that is true fro Thera aw well – maybe the settlements where on the part that sunk after all – I suppose it would hold true. So my claims on when Thera was inhabited for the first time is absolutely a figment of my imagination. Same as how she was created. Even though it is thought that some million or billion years ago the whole Agean was land that at some point sunk and the remaining islands are just the tops of the then existing mountains.

Finally, Irad, Mot and Omri are Sumerian names so you can assume that they came from Mesopotamia. There are evidence that the people of that Era (3000-1200BC) had established communications among Mesopotamia (Huge Area), Egypt (Also huge area), Minor Asia and Greece( not that huge an area). Probably even in the northern Balkans. No idea what was happening with China or India, though the rest of Europe and Africa probably had contact even if minimum. I think.

Wajag, thanks for your review. It certainly convinced me to work this more than I would. So you get an update quite early.

Time for me to stop typing and for you to start. This would mean R&R


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